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AoS 2 - Sylvaneth Discussion


Chris Tomlin

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1 hour ago, Kantchill said:

I'm more scared of Durthu being killed because he can't run away after combat tho. The My Heart is Ice only works after receiving damage so that doesn't increase his survivabiliy either...

What are your thoughts on that? 

The aim of the game is not to keep Durthu alive. If he can take out more than his value in enemy units, and ideally leave the unit which eventually kills him exposed to a counter attack, then he has still done his job. Winterleaf greatly increases your chances of having Durthu inflict significant damage to anything, which is really why you have him in the list to begin with. It is nice if he does live, of course, and he may succeed in killing everything that threatens him, but it isn’t something that you should restrict your lists to ensure. If it matters, you can always screen him with cheap infantry units to limit the number of attacks he faces, and/or consider healing spells to keep him alive over successive rounds  

More successful players are those who aren’t afraid to sacrifice units, even expensive units, to secure a win. I recounted a game a few pages back where I won by teleporting Drycha onto an enemy objective at the back of his deployment zone. She scored 3vps and forced him to divert his largest unit of Crypt Flayers to retake the objective. He later explained that he didn’t anticipate that move because it was certain death for Drycha. My observation was that it was also a certain win for me - if he didn’t divert the Flayers I would have held the objective for another turn, and because he did I was able to hold other objectives for longer instead. Under those circumstances why did it matter that Drycha would clearly die to his counter attack?

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1 hour ago, Trevelyan said:

The aim of the game is not to keep Durthu alive.

 

Hmm, now that you say it like that, I might indeed be a bit over protective of my expensive units... 

Guess I should try Winterleaf for my upcomming games and see how it plays compared to Harvestboon.  

 

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1 hour ago, Kantchill said:

Hmm, now that you say it like that, I might indeed be a bit over protective of my expensive units... 

I certainly used to be, and I still sometimes have to overcome the instinct to want to keep my little plastic men safe. Once I realised the value of not only letting them die, but deliberately sacrificing them (so they died on my terms) my results got a lot better.

I find it helps to accept that many/most units are going to die anyway, the other player will see to that. So start by assuming that at least one unit will die each turn and look at ways to determine what it will be and how it can achieve the most for you before it dies.

That’s not to say that you should throw units away for nothing. But a unit that scores a VP then dies has done more for you than a unit that survives the game without ever scoring. With Durthu, if you can take down a couple of big hitters from the enemy side before dying, that’s usually job done. 

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6 hours ago, Trevelyan said:

You’ve just said that the sword hunters were overkill anyway. The mortal wounds are nice, but really only balances for the fact that you’ll almost always have fewer Hunters in range than of you had taken the Scythes.

Having an extra Kurnoth Hunter in range makes up for not getting a mortal on a 6 to wound, especially once you start piling on the buffs from the Arch Rev and/or Frozen Kernel. Having two extra hunters in range for those situations where your opponent doesn’t allow you to surround a high value model is vastly superior. 

I suspect you're right. I will keep some sword hunters for use as units of 3. They are easier to teleport or deepstrike that way and can put out good damage. 

For a deathstar I am looking at getting 9 with scythes. 

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9 hours ago, Kantchill said:

I want to thank @Landohammer again for the solid advice!

I tried an adjusted list with your feedback for the first time yesterday, and while I did lose the game the army felt way more reliable. I never thought these 'minor' changes would reflect that so quickly. I know one game is a bit early to jump to conclusions, but I'm going to play one more game this week and two more games next week and see if I need any more adjustments. 

The only bummer is that I miss the Ghyrstrike on Durthu now. The 2+/2+ is way better than the +1 attack from Silent Sickle, but I'm stuck with that artifact for now as I'm still running Harvestboon and no longer have the battalion for an extra artifact. I'm still not sold on switching to Winterleaf, because the Seek New Fruit ability saved my Durthu so many times... The Frozen Kernel could be fun to use on the unit of 6 Kurnoths tho. 

The Arch-Revenant didn't do anything usefull this game as well (like, absolutly nothing), so I need to play some more games to see what he can do for the Kurnoth. 

I also feel that the Spiteswam Hive is less usefull now (also because below), and that's stil 50 points. I also have 30 points to spare, so maybe that 80 points can buy me something more usefull? 

Last but not least I only have 2 casts/dispells right now. Maybe it's because I'm used to be having more, but it feels a bit lackluster... What do you guys think? 

I'm running the following list right now: 

Glade: Harvestboon

Spirit of Durthu
- The Silent Sickle
- Seek New Fruit
Drycha
- Regrowth
Branchwraith
- Throne of Vines
Arch-Revenant

20x Spite-Revenants
20x Dryads
5x Tree-Revenants

3x Kurnoth Hunters w/Sword
6x Kurnoth Hunters w/Scythe

Spiteswarm Hive

Now thats a sharp list! Glad its working!

So Harvestboon is essentially the Durthu battalion. If you want Durthu to be the centerpiece of your list, then stick with it. Personally I would prefer Winterleaf since it generally buffs your entire army all the time rather than just chargers amd durthu. Note that the frozen kernel on durthu may actually eliminate the need for the extra attacks and retreat. (Since the enemy will probably be dead lol). That would be 6 main attacks +2 impales (all with exploding 6's) before the enemy even gets to swing. 

 

Arch Rev needs to be near the scythe hunters at all times. This can be tricky since the hunters will frequently charge out of range. Dont be afraid to charge Archie into the same combat to guarantee he is in range to buff.  Call to battle is invaluable for spites, dryads, hunters, ( and even Durthu with kernel). 

 

I think the Hive is really only strong in lists which focus on teleporting shenanigans such as Dreadwood glades. Its awesome but with only two casts the 50pts becomes a bit steep. Dropping it to bump your dryads to 30 wouldnt be a bad idea. (30 dryads is only 270)

 

If you keep it, do note that the Gladewyrm is only 30pts and is a decent pell. Its a great way score a second heal on Durthu.  Also it's large base size and decent range make it great for blocking your opponent's movement. (The D3 mortals is just a nice little bonus)

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5 hours ago, HollowHills said:

For a deathstar I am looking at getting 9 with scythes. 

I regularly run 6 scythes one most lists, but I think I would struggle to get value out of 9. 6 seems like the sweet spot for actually getting them all into range.

There might be occasions where I can get 7 into combat, and even rarer occasions where the table is clear enough to get more, but I suspect that most of the time I’d be paying a lot of points for reserve Hunters to keep the unit alive, rather than actually contribute damage.

That *might* be worthwhile (units of 6 hunters can still die to credible threats), so if you do go for the 9 blob then I’d be interested to hear how it goes. I’ve got an unassembled box of hunters on the shelf and I haven’t decided how to build them yet. 

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19 hours ago, Landohammer said:

I think the Hive is really only strong in lists which focus on teleporting shenanigans such as Dreadwood glades. Its awesome but with only two casts the 50pts becomes a bit steep. Dropping it to bump your dryads to 30 wouldnt be a bad idea. (30 dryads is only 270)

 

If you keep it, do note that the Gladewyrm is only 30pts and is a decent pell. Its a great way score a second heal on Durthu.  Also it's large base size and decent range make it great for blocking your opponent's movement. (The D3 mortals is just a nice little bonus)

I’m considering putting the Branchwych back in with Verdous Harmony for some extra support on the Kurnoths, a forward spawn point for woods and an extra dispell. She fills those 80 points nicely as well if I remove the Spiteswarm. 
 

I haven’t got the models (yet...) to run a unit of 30 Dryads and still be able to summon more with the Wraith, so that might be an option in the future but not for now. I only have 38 right now, lol. 
 

Final option could be increasing the Tree-Revenants to 10. That would propably give them more use then only being a one trick pony to grab an objective. But comparing these options I think the Wych is more verstile. 

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On 10/19/2019 at 9:17 AM, Kantchill said:

I’m considering putting the Branchwych back in with Verdous Harmony for some extra support on the Kurnoths, a forward spawn point for woods and an extra dispell. She fills those 80 points nicely as well if I remove the Spiteswarm. 
 

I haven’t got the models (yet...) to run a unit of 30 Dryads and still be able to summon more with the Wraith, so that might be an option in the future but not for now. I only have 38 right now, lol. 
 

Final option could be increasing the Tree-Revenants to 10. That would propably give them more use then only being a one trick pony to grab an objective. But comparing these options I think the Wych is more verstile. 

Sounds good! In the Wych vs Wraith comparison, the Wych looks bad, but in actuality many armies would absolutely kill for an 80pt caster with access to good spells. Also some objectives can only be held by wizards, so they are quite a good way to spend extra points. 

You know its funny how everyone ends up with odd amounts of dryads. I somehow ended up with like 37 or so lol. 

One trick I use to do when short on Dryads models, was just to bring what I have and fill the vacancies with casualties. Sometimes you won't have a full 10 to summon, but in those cases you can just cast something else or (with opponents permission) summon what you have. Setting up 6-8 dryads might not be ideal but its still a great use of a cast. 

I have also seen some people use extra dryad bits to squeeze out a few extra models for "emergency use only" lol. 

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I'm gonna be playing in a doubles event (1000pts/player) in about a month or so and my partner has expressed interest in playing Beastclaw Raiders (with the new rules from Ogor Mawtribes).  He's looking at running a Huskard on Stonehorn, 4x Mournfang Pack, 1 Stonehorn Beastriders, 2 Frost Sabre, and 2 Frost Sabre.  To complement that, I'm looking a providing shooting support with some magic.  Here's what I'm thinking:

Heartwood Glade

Branchwraith - General with Legacy of Valour trait, Horn of the Consort artefact, and Regrowth spell

3x Kurnoth Hunters with Bows
3x Kurnoth Hunters with Bows
3x Kurnoth Hunters with Bows
20x Dryads

and either...
5 Tree-Revenants and a Balewind Vortex
OR
10 Spite-Revenants

Thoughts?  I own everything sans Alarielle.

 

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1 hour ago, Pennydude said:

I'm gonna be playing in a doubles event (1000pts/player) in about a month or so and my partner has expressed interest in playing Beastclaw Raiders (with the new rules from Ogor Mawtribes).  He's looking at running a Huskard on Stonehorn, 4x Mournfang Pack, 1 Stonehorn Beastriders, 2 Frost Sabre, and 2 Frost Sabre.  To complement that, I'm looking a providing shooting support with some magic.  Here's what I'm thinking:

Heartwood Glade

Branchwraith - General with Legacy of Valour trait, Horn of the Consort artefact, and Regrowth spell

3x Kurnoth Hunters with Bows
3x Kurnoth Hunters with Bows
3x Kurnoth Hunters with Bows
20x Dryads

and either...
5 Tree-Revenants and a Balewind Vortex
OR
10 Spite-Revenants

Thoughts?  I own everything sans Alarielle.

 

Wow thats fun. Its interesting seeing the Kurnoth Heathwood gunlines starting to take off.  The only changes I would make would be to swap out the Regrowth spell for Verdurous Harmony. Your hunters are going to be getting alot of attention and healing a hunter won't make it shoot better. But raising a dead one will!

I usually prefer spite revenants, but in the case of your list the Balewind Vortex will probably be more use. It will help keep the Branchwraith alive while also giving you the chance to potentially raise a dead kurnoth and summon 10 dryads in the same turn. Dryad summoning is really impactful in 1000pt games.

If you really wanted to play hardcore gunline you could always split the 10 dryads into 2 units of 10 and use the remaining points for a Celestar Ballista :D

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9 minutes ago, LordPrometheus said:

Hey all, just getting started with Sylvaneth, and I was wondering how you all deal with Slaanesh. They are about a third of my local meta, and on paper, I don't see how we beat them. Anyone have any tips?

We are better placed than most armies against Slaanesh. Stomp on our Treelord variants helps to balance out the Slaanesh combat order shenanigans, our Kurnoths are durable enough to take a pounding if necessary (with Verdurous Harmony to recover from losses) and we’ve got enough potential ranged damage to take out bigger threats early (watch out for larger units of Fiends). We’ve even got our own summoning options to help in the numbers game. 

Take out the Slaanesh heroes as a priority and make sure that they have to chew through your single wound battleline infantry while you get to retaliate with your heavy hitters. Take some stomps and focus on their nastier units so you don’t mind attacking at the end of combat on your own turn. And make sure that you’ve understood the end of turn order sequence - on your own turn, you get to attack with all of your end-of-turn units before they get to attack with any of theirs. You only alternate units during the normal combat phase. 

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6 hours ago, Kantchill said:

Yeah lol, I used 30 Dryads to make Spite-Revenant conversions as well, so that's why I'm also missing a lot. I themed my army around living tree's so I was minimizing the amount of aelve-ish models. 

 

Spite-Revenants.jpeg

That's pretty cool. 
I did something very similar. 

Built Tree-Revs as normal, then used the spare Spite Rev arms (left and right) and heads combined with Dryad bodies to make Spite Revs. 
Basically the same as yours but I have Spite Rev heads on mine. 

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7 hours ago, Inquisitorsz said:

What other heroes do people usually run Alarielle with? 
I'm struggling to fit her into a list. 
I really like Durthu and/or Drycha but that get's really expensive with Alarielle. 
Am I basically stuck with a Branchwraith and Arch Rev? 

You can run her with Durthu or Drycha easily enough. Either one brings her to around 1000 points so you’ve still got plenty of points left. The remaining 1000 could get you two units of Kurnoth Hunters (400) an extra couple of heroes (Branchwraiths or Arch Revs 160-200) and still have at least 400 points for your battleline and endless spells.

Remember that Alarielle can summon extra models if you feel you still have gaps - 20 extra dryads? Another unit of Kurnoths? A stompy Treelord? - all available as necessary and in response to circumstances. 

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8 hours ago, Inquisitorsz said:

That's pretty cool. 
I did something very similar. 

Built Tree-Revs as normal, then used the spare Spite Rev arms (left and right) and heads combined with Dryad bodies to make Spite Revs. 
Basically the same as yours but I have Spite Rev heads on mine. 

Oh, nice! If you have any pictures I would love to see them.

I tried the Spite-revenant heads myself but I wasn't contend with them. And like I said, I wanted a living tree theme anyway so the Dryad heads were a better choiche for me. 

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Not painted yet obviously 

48 minutes ago, Kantchill said:

Oh, nice! If you have any pictures I would love to see them.

I tried the Spite-revenant heads myself but I wasn't contend with them. And like I said, I wanted a living tree theme anyway so the Dryad heads were a better choiche for me. 

 

20191022_201607(1).jpg

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So can anyone tell me how Sylvaneth is doing in the grand scheme of competative play and which list are appearing to be the best for our beloved trees?

I'm still thinking either winterleaf or dreadwood should be strongest but I'm wondering wether treelords and the stomps are used in winning lists, same for Alarielle and Durthu.. or is pumping as much hunters as we can doing best these days?

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15 hours ago, Trevelyan said:

We are better placed than most armies against Slaanesh. Stomp on our Treelord variants helps to balance out the Slaanesh combat order shenanigans, our Kurnoths are durable enough to take a pounding if necessary (with Verdurous Harmony to recover from losses) and we’ve got enough potential ranged damage to take out bigger threats early (watch out for larger units of Fiends). We’ve even got our own summoning options to help in the numbers game. 

Take out the Slaanesh heroes as a priority and make sure that they have to chew through your single wound battleline infantry while you get to retaliate with your heavy hitters. Take some stomps and focus on their nastier units so you don’t mind attacking at the end of combat on your own turn. And make sure that you’ve understood the end of turn order sequence - on your own turn, you get to attack with all of your end-of-turn units before they get to attack with any of theirs. You only alternate units during the normal combat phase. 

That actually makes a lot of sense. So Treelord heavy lists, or just bring a couple to help balance? I only own Durthu and a TLA at the moment. I was planning a list with Alarielle as one of the main heavy hitters. What spell is good on her for that sort of matchup? I was leaning towards Verderous Harmony, for rezzing Hunters and such, but maybe Throne of Vines?

My main concern is their stupid Chariots mulching up my battleline before they can even do anything. Those things suck. The Keepers worry me less, as Durthu/Drycha/Alarielle have the power to deal with them.

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15 hours ago, Inquisitorsz said:

What other heroes do people usually run Alarielle with? 
I'm struggling to fit her into a list. 
I really like Durthu and/or Drycha but that get's really expensive with Alarielle. 
Am I basically stuck with a Branchwraith and Arch Rev? 
 

I run her with Drycha and then a cheap vanilla character to hold artefacts/traits. Branchwraith or Arch Revenant are my go-to choices depending on which glade I use. 

However if your glade doesn't have strong artefacts/traits then you can always just skip additional characters altogether and declare Alarielle as your general. Thats actually a sneaky way to squeeze her into 1000pts.

As someone said before Alarielle's ridiculous cost can be a bit misleading. She is really only 460pts if she summons Kurnoth Hunters. (which she always should!)

 

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5 hours ago, Landohammer said:

However if your glade doesn't have strong artefacts/traits then you can always just skip additional characters altogether and declare Alarielle as your general. Thats actually a sneaky way to squeeze her into 1000pts

I wouldn’t normally run her at 1000 points, but if I did then I’d be strongly inclined to go with a Branchwraith, and an Arch Revenant then take either 10 Dryads and 5 Spites for an even 1000 points, or 2x5 Spites and an endless spell. 

Play that as Winterleaf with Archie as general and holding the Kernel, summon Sword Hunters and let Archie buff them and/or Alarielle herself while the Branchwraith summons spare Dryads. It’s a lot of punch for low points. 

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1 hour ago, Trevelyan said:

I wouldn’t normally run her at 1000 points, but if I did then I’d be strongly inclined to go with a Branchwraith, and an Arch Revenant then take either 10 Dryads and 5 Spites for an even 1000 points, or 2x5 dryads and about endless spell. 

Play that as Winterleaf with Archie as general and holding the Kernel, summon Sword Hunters and let Archie buff them and/or Alarielle herself while the Branchwraith summons spare Dryads. It’s a lot of punch for low points. 

I wouldn't either as 1K is usually for casual learning games, but if I was going to be competitive it would be be Alarielle, 3 Kurnoth, 5 Tree Revs, and 5 Spites.

That gives you 6 hunters on the board and Alarielle (and tree revs sniping objectives). Apply glade to taste.

Not alot of armies could deal with that!

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9 hours ago, LordPrometheus said:

That actually makes a lot of sense. So Treelord heavy lists, or just bring a couple to help balance? I only own Durthu and a TLA at the moment. I was planning a list with Alarielle as one of the main heavy hitters. What spell is good on her for that sort of matchup? I was leaning towards Verderous Harmony, for rezzing Hunters and such, but maybe Throne of Vines?

My main concern is their stupid Chariots mulching up my battleline before they can even do anything. Those things suck. The Keepers worry me less, as Durthu/Drycha/Alarielle have the power to deal with them.

I say this with zero actual experience so take it with a grain of salt.... 
While I agree treelord stomps are a good counter to all the strike first stuff.... having lots of high wound monsters just feeds them a ton more depravity points. That seem to be the big issue with Slaanesh... not so much their combat power but their summoning being super strong.  

 

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10 hours ago, Aezeal said:

So can anyone tell me how Sylvaneth is doing in the grand scheme of competative play and which list are appearing to be the best for our beloved trees?

I'm still thinking either winterleaf or dreadwood should be strongest but I'm wondering wether treelords and the stomps are used in winning lists, same for Alarielle and Durthu.. or is pumping as much hunters as we can doing best these days?

As someone just starting to build a Sylvaneth army for a tournament next year, I've been doing a fair bit of reading.  
Seems like the book is generally pretty good and there's a few different viable options.... HOWEVER.... they all still seem to be on the lower end of the power curve. One dreadwood list run by Laurie has done well at 2 big recent tournaments. (minimal heroes, 15 hunters, minimal outcasts battalion and some dryads). 

But other than that, Sylvaneth seem to be horribly under represented at large events for some reason.  
Sydney GT just had 94 players and not a single Sylvaneth list. Make of that what you will. Could be a variety of reasons but for such a large event to have more brettonians and tomb kings than a fairly new 2.0 battletome seems a bit weird huh?
Facehammer GT had 2 Sylvaneth lists out of 80 players. They came 5th and 71st.
AOS Grand Tournament had 3. Placed 3rd, 42nd, 46th out of 65 players.
Laurie was the guy who placed 5th and 3rd at those events. So clearly he's a good player and uses mass hunters well.  

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