Let's Chat Sylvaneth

[MacDuff]

May the dice be with you.

[Lhw]

And congrats @MayItBe, always nice to see Sylvaneth beating Changehost.

[DantePQ]

@Lhw  how are you doing ? Still playing Sylvaneth?  I've played some variations of Dreadwood but I'm making jump into Daughters of Khaine got a little tired with Sylvaneth  

[Lhw]

I'm good thanks, how are you? Yeh, the trees do seem to have hit badly by the recent 'meta' (hate that word!) I gave Dreadwood a bit of a try, took it to Blood & Glory. Just didn't quite work for me - I seemed to be relying on opponents mistakes too much. I'm playing with a Gnarlroot list now, with a Skink Starseer (TLA, BW, BW, Starseer, 30 Dryads, 5 Trevs, 5 Trevs, 6 Scythes, 3 Bows). Probably will still be flawed, but going to give it a go. Considering the jump to DoK when they come up too

[DantePQ]

I've been playing Dreadwood  list as it gives me much fun nowadays  as I am burned out by playing Gnarlroot for so long. Was thinking about Skink Starseer but I guess I will be playing Dreadwood for this month and DoK then - so welcome in the DoK club  

[Mirage8112]

15 hours ago, Freejack02 said:

Again, that doesn't mean the NUMBERS are biased - my OPINION is. The numbers show only the relevant information of those specific weapons against those specific saves. No bias in that small table I posted back there, at all. Anyone who looks at those numbers, and only those numbers, would not be subject to my bias in any way. 

I don't even think that swords are exceptionally better than scythes, I'm just tired of no one giving swords a fair shake and admitting that they have a place among the Hunter loadouts. If I'm being honest, I would probably just label each option something like:

Swords - dps?

Scythes - tactical?

Bows - range?

 

@Freejack02 Is correct and his numbers add up. There's a lot of personal bias here, but the numbers don't lie. 

Scythes have their place in a unit loadout. But freejack is right that swords often do a better job because the extra attacks. 50% of until in the game have a save of 5+ (for which swords are better). Maybe another 35% have a save of 4+ (in which swords and scythes are close enough to be considered even). That leaves 15% of units that have a save of 3+ or better. Thats not a large enough margin to require that extra point of rend. Because thats really what your trading off. You're losing 3 attacks for an extra point of rend. That's not an equal trade off.
 

15 hours ago, DantePQ said:

Yet from your data Swords are better then Scythes but no one uses Swords as far as competitive gaming is concerned. 

 

This is dumbest argument I've ever heard. By that logic you shouldn't be playing Sylvaneth competitively because not 1 pages back you said: 
 

On 1/30/2018 at 2:21 AM, DantePQ said:

 we don't see Sylvaneth performing well in tournaments anymore. 

 You can run whatever you want to run, but justifying your choices as "I'm only picking what's good in the meta" is dumb. Because the meta, itself is also dumb. I say that because the meta sometimes feeds itself. I've seen bunch of unit lists that were laughed at until they hit the table and in the hands of a competent player they wreck everything. Why? because everybody in the meta was just taking what everybody else was taking and group think means good combinations (or even basic math it seems) get ignored in favor of trying to be like the cool kids. 

Scythes are vey reliable for taking down high value targets. But lets be honest, how many times have you seen more than 1 unit with a save greater than 3+? Almost never. furthermore, just because you're missing -1 rend by bringing swords doesn't mean you don't have a way to deal with high armor targets. The way to deal with them is called Dryads. If something has too much armor to kill, then you tarpit it and leave it there all game while your swords dismantle the rest of the army. Putting scythes behind a dryad wall might work in some games, but a smart player will just charge a different part of the dryad unit not within 3" of the scythes. And if they're behind a wall of dryads, they won't be able to charge since the dryad base is greater than 1/2 inch which means they won't be able to complete a charge. They'll just have to stand there and watch the dryads die until space opens up and allows them to charge.

All weapon loadouts have a purpose, and a place in which they excel: scythes swords and bows. Some won't fit your list's play style, and others maybe be situationally more useful. I've had very good results with swords and scythes under various conditions. Anybody who says "one is better than the others in all cases", clearly has no idea what they're talking about.  



 

[DantePQ]

@Mirage8112 nice try but it doesn't work that way. 

There is a reason why Swords aren't making any competitive list - they are not needed, Sylvaneth have ways to take care of lower armour units, but hardly any answers to high armoured units. There are plenty of characters/units that with mystic shield or ability/item that ignores -1 rend that Swords would be bad against (or worse then Scythes). Your stats with number of units with 5+ are useless, because Sylvaneth has problem with that 10%-15% of units that I mentioned and Scythes are our solution. Comapring units in vaccum doesn't tell you anything - as things like mystic shield, ignoring -1 rend aren't taken into consideration as well as Scythes range. 

Your argument against meta is also flawed, yes I have also seen units/army builds that perform extremely well against meta. Why ? Becasue in majority of those builds are build to counter meta, they could wacky etc but they perform extremely well against popular armies. That's not a case with Swords. There is a reason why hardly any successful Sylvaneth uses Swords (even in times of 18 KH builds there was no Swords Hunters). Not biggest they suck but becasue Scythes/Bows were more optimal and as far as comeptitive side of AoS is concerned you optimize. And fact that Sylvaneth isn't performing very well in tournaments doesn't mena that I shouldn't  play in tournaments.

I gave you facts :

1) noone uses/used Kurnoth Swords and had success at tournaments - and I see reasons why to optimize an army

2) Sylvaneth  isn't performing very well at tournaments. 

and you try to turn them around to fit your opinion (which isn't backed up by any competitive results, lists etc). Sure, skilled player can use less optimal builds and still have great results but that not the case with Sword Hunters. 

I am happy that you have great success with Sword Hunters but when anybody ask me which option is best in comeptitive builds - it's easy -  Scythes and my opnion is backed by results of countless Sylvaneth players (post GH2017 and pre GH2017) your's isn't. Could you build an army around Sword Hunters - sure you can Hunters are still very good no matter which loadout will you bring. But Scythes are just better. 

[Walkirriox]

14 hours ago, MayItBe said:

Hey, thank you

Main problem with DoT for me is Herald od Tzeentch getting on Vortex and Changelig swap. First turn using range i'm sniping characters who can summon vortex and block changelign, so he cannot swap with Lord of Change. If he is not playing changeling you could give him 1st turn, as he will be out of range with everything and 2d6+d3 MW is something you should endure. 3 units of hunter is enough, and I just wanted to be sure i can deal enough damage first turn to cripple key elements in my opponent army to have easier game later. My dices hated me that weekend, but with better (or just normal :P) rolls it would be enough.
 

This weekend i'll have more tests of my list in another tournament, and i'll keep you informed how it went

Hi! Thank you very much! Your list worked perfect! 

I was lucky and got damned terrain, so I had the 3 units of kurnoth +1 to hit buff almost every turn (and healed them using gnarlroot spell). First turn I sniped blue scribes, herald and wounded LOC. Then I created a wyldwood screen, so he had to choose to cast inside the woods or try to avoid them and give me more turns to snipe. He decided the second choice so in turn 3 I killed LOC (damned terrain is just GODLIKE)  and forced him to burn almost all of the destiny dices.  After that, all his army fell like a house of cards.

Something interesting that worked very well:

As I had the first turn, I let him play first, and kept like this every turn, so when I won the dice roll, I let him go first. That way he couldn’t have double turn, and I could react to his moves. Ofc, when he won the roll, never gave me the double turn. I also kept my army 18” from his LOC, he wasn’t able to touch me even once.

I can’t wait your next report about this list! Good luck in your next tournament!

[Mirage8112]

6 hours ago, DantePQ said:

@Mirage8112 nice try but it doesn't work that way. 

Oh ho ho! O rly. Please do tell...

 

6 hours ago, DantePQ said:

There is a reason why Swords aren't making any competitive list - they are not needed, Sylvaneth have ways to take care of lower armour units, but hardly any answers to high armoured units. There are plenty of characters/units that with mystic shield or ability/item that ignores -1 rend that Swords would be bad against (or worse then Scythes). Your stats with number of units with 5+ are useless, because Sylvaneth has problem with that 10%-15% of units that I mentioned and Scythes are our solution. Comapring units in vaccum doesn't tell you anything - as things like mystic shield, ignoring -1 rend aren't taken into consideration as well as Scythes range. 

 
Firstly, units that ignore -1 rend are few and far in between. Seraphon yes with Saurus guard and warriors (although does anybody really have major problem with Saurus Guard/Warriors?), and the Bastilodon (which ignores all rend) as well as Spirit hosts (which also ignore all rend). In two of those cases Scythes are just flat out worse (since -2 rend does nothing) and with Saurus warriors which only have an armor save of 5+ anyway. As for Saurus guard with a natural 4+, (3+ with shield) we do have other answers than scythes (and hell, they're not really scary anyway) 

I am taking range into consideration. 1 extra inch just doesn't bring that much to the table, unless your running them in a big group. In that case, yes, scythes are probably better than swords, but  nobody is saying that scythes aren't better under some conditions. What @Freejack02 is saying is that in the majority of cases, swords are probably better. It pretty evident from your response that you really don't know how to deal with high-armor units other than scythes. No wonder you think they're mandatory. 
 

6 hours ago, DantePQ said:

Your argument against meta is also flawed, yes I have also seen units/army builds that perform extremely well against meta. Why ? Becasue in majority of those builds are build to counter meta, they could wacky etc but they perform extremely well against popular armies. That's not a case with Swords. There is a reason why hardly any successful Sylvaneth uses Swords (even in times of 18 KH builds there was no Swords Hunters). Not biggest they suck but becasue Scythes/Bows were more optimal and as far as comeptitive side of AoS is concerned you optimize. And fact that Sylvaneth isn't performing very well in tournaments doesn't mena that I shouldn't  play in tournaments.

Gibberish.

You can't say "Sylvaneth should take scythes for an optimal build to counter the meta", and in the same breath note that "Sylvaneth don't do well in the Meta". Maybe if people stopped all taking the same things and building the exact same lists Sylvaneth would be doing better. If Sylvaneth were crushing tournaments with a bunch of scythe hunters you'd have an argument. But they aren't really doing that are they? So my question for you is why are you fighting to defend a build that everybody takes but doesn't win with? 
 

6 hours ago, DantePQ said:

I gave you facts :

1) noone uses/used Kurnoth Swords and had success at tournaments - and I see reasons why to optimize an army

2) Sylvaneth  isn't performing very well at tournaments. 

1. Nobody playing Sylvaneth takes swords at tournaments 
2. Sylvaneth don't win tournaments 

Again see my point above: why are you fighting to defend a build that everybody takes but doesn't win with? 

I take scythes. I've also taken swords. In my game today, my 3 scythes died but my 3 sword hunters were the MVP's of the game. Weight of attacks mattered more than rend. Can't argue with math. 
 

6 hours ago, DantePQ said:

I am happy that you have great success with Sword Hunters but when anybody ask me which option is best in comeptitive builds - it's easy -  Scythes and my opnion is backed by results of countless Sylvaneth players (post GH2017 and pre GH2017) your's isn't. Could you build an army around Sword Hunters - sure you can Hunters are still very good no matter which loadout will you bring. But Scythes are just better. 

 
Ok. You tell them that. That way everybody can run around with the exact same build and get pretty much the same results. Because that's a smart way to do things. Seriously though. Who looks at the player in 20th place and thinks "I want to build my list just like that. Then maybe I can get 20th place too someday".... 

Swords for hunters in 3's for clearing troops and hordes (mark my words, hordes will be a huge thing when Nagash drops in a week).
Scythes in units of 6+ (for alpha-striking dreadwood builds or removing heavy armor). 
Bows for laying down range fire and sniping mid-tier enemy characters. 

Learn to use the right tool for the right job. If the only tool you know how to use is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. That's fine, until you run across a bolt and lugnut...

[MayItBe]

On 3.02.2018 at 11:30 PM, Walkirriox said:

Hi! Thank you very much! Your list worked perfect! 

I was lucky and got damned terrain, so I had the 3 units of kurnoth +1 to hit buff almost every turn (and healed them using gnarlroot spell). First turn I sniped blue scribes, herald and wounded LOC. Then I created a wyldwood screen, so he had to choose to cast inside the woods or try to avoid them and give me more turns to snipe. He decided the second choice so in turn 3 I killed LOC (damned terrain is just GODLIKE)  and forced him to burn almost all of the destiny dices.  After that, all his army fell like a house of cards.

Something interesting that worked very well:

As I had the first turn, I let him play first, and kept like this every turn, so when I won the dice roll, I let him go first. That way he couldn’t have double turn, and I could react to his moves. Ofc, when he won the roll, never gave me the double turn. I also kept my army 18” from his LOC, he wasn’t able to touch me even once.

I can’t wait your next report about this list! Good luck in your next tournament!

Glad to hear that! Did your opponent have a herald and/or vortex? This is my main reason why i don't give up first turn, to snipe down what i need, but then I suffer when i lose initiative.

 

My next report, same list as before (TLA, 2xBW,  4xbowhunters):

1st game: Seraphon (shadowstrike - battalion with ripperodactyls) [Scorched Earth]

Guy how flies with me to UK for London GT, so we spend beginning of the game talking about it, and I failed my deployement -> branchwyches was not split and i was not able to spread woods anywhere, because i was focused on my right flank. He deployed Kroak in the edge of the table and used skink move from battalion to deny my kurnoth teleport, which saved kroak from death. Game went from one way to another, as first round I claimed 6 pts by burning one of his objectives for 3. It all come down to his burning by turn 3, and time was up: he rolled 3, exactly what he needed. Kroak ravaged my army, and this loss will remind me not to ****** deployement again, as this is my weakness.

2nd game: Seraphon (thunderquake - 2 bastiladons, engine, stegadon and slaan) [Starstrike]
My opponent was testing Slaan instead of his usual kroak, and was sad when we paired, because of my ranged-killing list. This was my first encounter with slaan, so i decided to give him first turn, and for my surprise he only managed to kill a few dryads. I need to give up on initiative more often i've killied stegadon and 2 razordrons in cover, but completely skipped slaan, as he was not a real threat to me, and i wanted to see if he could do anything. 2nd round i've won double turn and secured middle objective with dryads, who got charged by basti and engine in return. Third turn I was able to block my objective, and contest his with my hunters, which moved aggressively forward, for my standards, but he was not able to kill two units. We played full 5 turns, and by the start of the last round he needed to score all 3 (15 points) and deny me even one, to win, but it was impossible, as he had 2 dinosaurs, 10 skinks and slaan left, to my 3 squads of hunters and TLA.
Starstrike is much scarier list for me, with billions of attack. With monster-focused lists i'm quite steady.

3rd game vs Archaon and 6 varanguards [Duality of death]
Again Treesonging TLA and screening him with dryads secured me one of the ovjectives, and smaller dryad unit teleported with branchwych to the other one (but she didnt score it) Archaon went for this objective, and varanguards charged onto bigger one. Dryads held quite good versus them with -1 hit, and after winning initiative for turn 2 i've moved branchwych by 0.0001 inch just to gain control of the objective and hunters with TLA and rest of the dryads tried to kill varanguards. Turn three my opponent realised he cannot win this game (archaon too far away, to mean anything) and conceded - i even moved hunters from the middle of the table to the right side, to not allow him charge them to gain additional inches in his pursuit.

Overall I finished 3rd (again! :D)
For next time, i'm thinking about dropping one hunters and branchwych to take Drycha (yes, the one underpreforming for me) for singles events, because i'm afraid of a few players, who i know will come with big units (Fyreslayers, Tzaangors, new death hordes) but we will see. For now I am happy with my list.

[Paul G]

So you've been run 12 bow hunters? That does seem a little overkill! Maybe swap a couple out for sword Hunters too if you're worried about hordes?

[Walkirriox]

11 hours ago, MayItBe said:

Glad to hear that! Did your opponent have a herald and/or vortex? This is my main reason why i don't give up first turn, to snipe down what i need, but then I suffer when i lose initiative.

He had herald but didn't have vortex (we think that vortex is a bit unbalanced, and none of us play it). Is it worth it to snipe him first turn but giving him the chance to get double turn?

11 hours ago, MayItBe said:

Overall I finished 3rd (again! :D)
For next time, i'm thinking about dropping one hunters and branchwych to take Drycha (yes, the one underpreforming for me) for singles events, because i'm afraid of a few players, who i know will come with big units (Fyreslayers, Tzaangors, new death hordes) but we will see. For now I am happy with my list.

Congratulations!! I think it would be a good idea, I played 3 units of bow hunters and I think it's enough for sniping purposes. Drycha has the anti-horde potential that this list needs. I don't know why she underperformed for you, but almost every game I played her, she was the MVP!

Thank you again for your reports, keep us informed about your next tournaments! Good luck!

[Aezeal]

On 3-2-2018 at 8:17 PM, Mirage8112 said:

Scythes have their place in a unit loadout. But freejack is right that swords often do a better job because the extra attacks. 50% of until in the game have a save of 5+ (for which swords are better). Maybe another 35% have a save of 4+ (in which swords and scythes are close enough to be considered even). That leaves 15% of units that have a save of 3+ or better. Thats not a large enough margin to require that extra point of rend. Because thats really what your trading off. You're losing 3 attacks for an extra point of rend. That's not an equal trade off.
 

Without going into the rest of the discussion:

Swords are still better at 4+, they are equal on 3+ , scythes are better 2 +. This is ofcourse without rerolls of all failed saves or saves of 1 in which case it's completely different. 

[Popisdead]

How many forests are people using these days?

I have 4 Citadel Woods (mostly leftover from 8th ed Wood Elf days) but with my buddy going really hard into Maggotkin I would like to ramp up the forest deployment.

What is a good number of forest kits to have?   I think last I saw on twitter someone made 12 bases from scratch.  Is that excessive?

I plan to scratch build additional ones.

Thanks kindly,

[Richelieu]

16 minutes ago, Aezeal said:

Without going into the rest of the discussion:

Swords are still better at 4+, they are equal on 3+ , scythes are better 2 +. This is ofcourse without rerolls of all failed saves or saves of 1 in which case it's completely different. 

They're not equal on 3+.  Swords are more likely to get 0 or 1 successes from a unit as well as being more likely to get 5+ successes from a unit.  Scythes more consistently get 2-4 successes and I think that reliability is an advantage (not to mention the 2" range advantage).  See the below binomial distributions for 9 scythe rolls vs 12 sword attacks against a 3+ save.

 

[Mirage8112]

56 minutes ago, Richelieu said:

They're not equal on 3+.  Swords are more likely to get 0 or 1 successes from a unit as well as being more likely to get 5+ successes from a unit.  Scythes more consistently get 2-4 successes and I think that reliability is an advantage (not to mention the 2" range advantage).  See the below binomial distributions for 9 scythe rolls vs 12 sword attacks against a 3+ save.

 

Interesting, but I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying that this is probability of how many wounds come out from a combat with 3 scythe hunters vs 3 swords hunters? 

[Richelieu]

32 minutes ago, Mirage8112 said:

Interesting, but I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying that this is probability of how many wounds come out from a combat with 3 scythe hunters vs 3 swords hunters? 

Well, successful attacks.  You'd multiply by the damage result (2 for swords, and the average of d3 for scythes).  This is a much more useful measurement than the average because you can make informed decisions about the likelihood of a specific result.  For example, say i need to put 4 wounds on a unit with a 3+ save i can see that there is a 26.4% chance I will get that exact result and only a 21.7% chance I will get a result LESS than that, so I can say with a good deal of confidence that I will succeed.

I will say that I consider the 2 damage of swords an advantage over scythes.  Wherever possible i prefer elimination of random factors. 

[Mirage8112]

17 minutes ago, Richelieu said:

Well, successful attacks.  You'd multiply by the damage result (2 for swords, and the average of d3 for scythes).  This is a much more useful measurement than the average because you can make informed decisions about the likelihood of a specific result.  For example, say i need to put 4 wounds on a unit with a 3+ save i can see that there is a 26.4% chance I will get that exact result and only a 21.7% chance I will get a result LESS than that, so I can say with a good deal of confidence that I will succeed.

Oooooo. I get now. That's actually super helpful. Especially useful for things like the SE Aetherstrike Forcewhere units can shoot if you completely destroy a unit in the combat/shooting phase. This way you can maybe distribute attacks efficiently and give yourself a chance to wipe the unit out from battleshock rather than combat. Can we perhaps see the same thing but for an armor save of say, 5+?

[Richelieu]

5 minutes ago, Mirage8112 said:

Oooooo. I get now. That's actually super helpful. Especially useful for things like the SE Aetherstrike Forcewhere units can shoot if you completely destroy a unit in the combat/shooting phase. This way you can maybe distribute attacks efficiently and give yourself a chance to wipe the unit out from battleshock rather than combat. Can we perhaps see the same thing but for an armor save of say, 5+?

Sure, i created a plug and play spreadsheet so it's not hard at all.  Give me a few and I'll run the numbers and edit this post.

I added another field which is what I usually go by: The probability I will achieve at minimum the desired result.  As you can see, against a 5+ save the swords pull ahead, with an 88.01% chance of getting 3 or more successes while Scythes only have an 84.25% chance of getting 3 or more successes.  The difference between the two grows larger the greater the desired result. 

[Nick in York]

1 hour ago, Popisdead said:

How many forests are people using these days?

I have 4 Citadel Woods (mostly leftover from 8th ed Wood Elf days) but with my buddy going really hard into Maggotkin I would like to ramp up the forest deployment.

What is a good number of forest kits to have?   I think last I saw on twitter someone made 12 bases from scratch.  Is that excessive?

I plan to scratch build additional ones.

Thanks kindly,

I would suggest about 6 woods bases. You might want 1 or 2 more but you'll probably find it difficult to fit even 6 down in most games.

[Mirage8112]

26 minutes ago, Richelieu said:

Sure, i created a plug and play spreadsheet so it's not hard at all.  Give me a few and I'll run the numbers and edit this post.

I added another field which is what I usually go by: The probability I will achieve at minimum the desired result.  As you can see, against a 5+ save the swords pull ahead, with an 88.01% chance of getting 3 or more successes while Scythes only have an 84.25% chance of getting 3 or more successes.  The difference between the two grows larger the greater the desired result. 

Super helpful! One more thing:

We've talked pretty extensively about unit sizes contributing to the efficiency of swords vs scythes. Could you perhaps run the same number but for a group of 6 scythes? and say, 4 hunters? That way we can take a look at combats where scythes would all be able to pile in, but swords wouldn't. 

[Richelieu]

43 minutes ago, Mirage8112 said:

Super helpful! One more thing:

We've talked pretty extensively about unit sizes contributing to the efficiency of swords vs scythes. Could you perhaps run the same number but for a group of 6 scythes? and say, 4 hunters? That way we can take a look at combats where scythes would all be able to pile in, but swords wouldn't. 

OK last one for now, then i gotta cook dinner and get some modeling done!  In this scenario there are 18 scythe trials and 16 sword trials against a 5+ save.

Scythes utterly crush swords here.  Look at the difference in probability of achieving 7 or more successes.  76% to 38% in favor of scythes.  This result will progressively skew towards scythes even further as the defending unit's save improves. 

[Naflem]

On 2/3/2018 at 1:56 PM, DantePQ said:

1) noone uses/used Kurnoth Swords and had success at tournaments - and I see reasons why to optimize an army

That's not a fact, jack. 

[Craze]

After reading this discussion of "Swords vs. Scythes" on the last couple of pages, I think it becomes quite clear that there is no crystal-clear "winner" in this competition.

There may be a lot of situations where scythes outperform swords and generally the majority of players seem to favor scythes over swords but there still may be some situations / army compositions where swords outshine scythes.

I - as a noob to AoS - would be really happy to see a thread where the various spreadsheets are linked and a fact based discussion is going on on which hunters to favor.

For me there is also the option of ranged hunters a little bit missing in this discussion as this really is an option when you know the meta of the events you play in.

Of Course here the comparison gets even more difficult...

[MayItBe]

On 6.02.2018 at 11:58 AM, Walkirriox said:

He had herald but didn't have vortex (we think that vortex is a bit unbalanced, and none of us play it). Is it worth it to snipe him first turn but giving him the chance to get double turn?

We play that each 9+ cast roll gives him additional spell, so he dashes his spell d6, lore spell d6, bolt d3 (2d6+d3 WM) + mystic shield on himself if needed. It is enough to kill small heroes or TLA/Drycha.
I'll be honest, that even we have tzeentch heavy 'meta' in my club, i've played few games only and I lack precise expertise in this matter, but i'll keep posting as my experience grow.

And for Drycha, i've been writing about her last year, as I feel that her combat power without re-rolls is lacking and only horde i'm meeting is fyreslayers