AoS 2 - Sylvaneth Discussion

[Pennydude]

2 hours ago, Thalassic Monstrosity said:

I really like the idea of Ironbark, can you specify what make their sub-faction abilities of minimal value?

The command ability is situational because it requires your opponent to charge and then roll a 2+ for D3 mortals. I think you get better usage of that command point from using the generic command abilities.

Re-roll battleshock tests is fine but that means your hordes need to be close together. Dryads can do that but more than likely theyll be in/near a woods that is probably your Place of Power. It’s a situational ability.

If a shooting meta comes back, the command trait would be help but otherwise it’s extremely situational. Against some armies, it’s completely useless.

Giving a weapon +1 to wound is a bad Ghyrstrike and the command trait in Cities of Sigmar - Living City grants that AND +1 to save. 
 

About the coolest thing you could do is ally in 10 Hearthguard Berzerkers and a hero for a tanky unit.

Its just my thoughts and while I will be trying Ironbark out at some point, it’s not a priority to play or even theorycraft a list.

[Trevelyan]

8 hours ago, Thalassic Monstrosity said:

Can you no longer take a Branchwych or Branchwraith as your Champion? I was considering starting up Sylvaneth as a PtG counter to my friend's new Ossiarchs and I was going to try and field as many units as I could.

You can take a Branchwraith, Branchwych or Arch Revenant as your champion if you prefer. But you can only ever have one Champion - unlike some other factions, Sylvaneth doesn’t put cheaper heroes into a “Heroic Followers” table. So Durthu, TLA, Branchwraith, Branchwych and Arch Revenant are all mutually exclusive. 

The Branchwraith would be the best way to get a “complete” Sylvaneth experience - she at least allows all of the options in theory. But in practice, as a faction, we tend to rely on having a couple of casters about so any PtG experience which limits us to a single caster is going to give a very different feel to the faction. 

[Sputnik]

19 hours ago, Trevelyan said:

The Path to Glory options in the Sylvaneth book are bad. There is no way to get an additional model from the Champion table, so you inevitably miss out on a lot of what makes the faction work in real game. 

If you pick Durthu then there is no way to get a spell caster in your army. That means no summoning additional Wyldwoods, no summoning extra Dryads and no casting any of our excellent other spells. Durthu really needs Wyldwoods to perform at his best, and the whole faction relies on them for assorted movement and other buffs. So a Durthu Champion in a PtG game carries a lot of hidden penalties. 

Taking a TLA gives you a single wizard, plus allows you to auto-summon one Wyldwood. That is a huge benefit for the rest of your army. You still won’t get to summon Dryads (requires a Branchwraith) but you’ll get to see more of the faction and won’t lose out on as many Wyldwood-dependant buffs. 

On that basis, the TLA is probably the better choice of the two. But I would really not recommend PtG as an introduction to Sylvaneth as you’ll lose out either way. TLA or Durthu isn’t a question of which is good, but only which is least bad. 

Thanks for the info. That seems like an odd decision from GW to make it so difficult for Sylvaneth players in a game mode which should be about selling models to new players. Ah well, I've invested now so I guess I'll play it through and see how I go. It looks like I can add allies from the same grand alliance in the campaign as I gain points so I might just buy some Wanderers and gradually shift it towards a Living City army when I'm done with the PtG campaign. 

[Trevelyan]

47 minutes ago, Sputnik said:

Thanks for the info. That seems like an odd decision from GW to make it so difficult for Sylvaneth players in a game mode which should be about selling models to new players.

I suspect it’s less a deliberate decision and more an unfortunate consequence of the way that most factions work in PtG. There are only a few that have a dedicated Heroic Followers table, and there are several other factions that also suffer from the lack of one. For the most part, GW just lumped the leaders together in one table and didn’t think through the consequences for each faction - it’s a generic approach which works better for some factions than others. 

That doesn’t mean you can’t play Sylvaneth at all in PtG, though. Just that you won’t really get a full flavour of the faction that way. A list with Durthu and a load of Hunters light work reasonably well, for example, but it won’t play the same way as having those units with the usual support. Like trying to decide whether you like Neapolitan ice cream by just tasting the vanilla. 

Wanderers don’t really help with a Sylvaneth PtG list. And there is no reason to move away from Sylvaneth after you lose the PtG restrictions. 

[Warbossironteef]

I'm looking to convert my old trees. Would anyone be willing to do me a huge favor and measure the distance between the tips of the new tree "bases"? I believe the new tree "bases" have one small one, one medium sized one, and one large one.

Edited October 28, 2019 by Warbossironteef

[a74xhx]

I keep playing friendly matches against a colleague. so am finding ways of switching up my lists. Recently he was complaining my Kurnoths are overpowered, so I decided to create some lists without any. Trickier than I expected as  I just end up with Behemoths and Battleline.

My current favourite to try is the following Gnarlroot list. I think it's a little light on tar pits and bubblewrap around the big guys (just 30 models ignoring the tree revs), but the Wraith should be fairly solid in getting Dryads out, and Alarielle will spit out 20 of them. Hoping I should be fine with wood summoning too, as I didn't really want to switch out Drycha for an Ancient and rely on teleporting to get in the action.

 

Allegiance: Sylvaneth
- Glade: Gnarlroot
Mortal Realm: Ghyran

Branchwraith (80)
- General
- Trait: Nurtured by Magic
- Artefact: Chalice of Nectar
- Deepwood Spell: Verdurous Harmony
Alarielle the Everqueen (660)
- Deepwood Spell: Throne of Vines
Drycha Hamadreth (320)
- Deepwood Spell: Regrowth
Spirit of Durthu (340)
- Artefact: Ghyrstrike

10 x Spite-Revenants (120)
5 x Spite-Revenants (60)
5 x Spite-Revenants (60)
10 x Dryads (100)
5 x Tree-Revenants (80)

Outcasts (100)
Gladewyrm (30)
Spiteswarm Hive (50)

Total: 2000 / 2000
Wounds: 78

[a74xhx]

On 10/28/2019 at 2:43 PM, Warbossironteef said:

I'm looking to convert my old trees. Would anyone be willing to do me a huge favor and measure the distance between the tips of the new tree "bases"? I believe the new tree "bases" have one small one, one medium sized one, and one large one.

Finally near my trees, and I get:

160mm

127mm

160mm

Yup, the two bigger ones are the same size. Which makes sense when you want to make a wood from just two.

[Aezeal]

24 minutes ago, a74xhx said:

Finally near my trees, and I get:

160mm

127mm

160mm

Yup, the two bigger ones are the same size. Which makes sense when you want to make a wood from just two.

I used to think about something like this; mostly I thought about making a very small wood with 2 small ones. But the warscrolls says 3-6 it seems so no forests of 2 models.

BTW am I correct that when placing my original wood I need to place it

- on my side of the table

- more than 6' from objective

- more than 6' from aterrain or table edge?

[Pennydude]

Just now, Aezeal said:

I used to think about something like this; mostly I thought about making a very small wood with 2 small ones. But the warscrolls says 3-6 it seems so no forests of 2 models.

BTW am I correct that when placing my original wood I need to place it

- on my side of the table

- more than 6' from objective

- more than 6' from aterrain or table edge?

I'm pretty sure it's...

- more than 1" away from enemy territory

- more than 3" away from other terrain features

- more than 6" away from objectives

That's how I've been doing it.  You have to take the worst cases between the GHB2019 and our battletome.

[a74xhx]

1 hour ago, Aezeal said:

I used to think about something like this; mostly I thought about making a very small wood with 2 small ones. But the warscrolls says 3-6 it seems so no forests of 2 models.

Gah, yes your right.

1 hour ago, Pennydude said:

I'm pretty sure it's...

- more than 1" away from enemy territory

- more than 3" away from other terrain features

- more than 6" away from objectives

That's how I've been doing it.  You have to take the worst cases between the GHB2019 and our battletome.

I can't remember off the top of my head, but does that include the updates from the FAQ?

[Pennydude]

7 minutes ago, a74xhx said:

I can't remember off the top of my head, but does that include the updates from the FAQ?

Yes.  The FAQ says that "faction terrain must be set up more than 3" from any other terrain features and more than 1" from any objectives, in addition to any other restrictions that apply to it." (emphasis mine)

Per our battletome only, the restrictions are more than 1" from any other terrain feature, more than 1" away from enemy territory, and more than 6" away from any other objectives.  Now if we only follow our book, we only satisfy one of the two restrictions from the GHB (distance from objectives).  We would be in violation of the "distance from terrain features" part.  

So... the parameters I outlined above are our restrictions for our allegiance ability Awakened Wyldwood.  For all others, it's just more than 1" away from everything.

[Azamar]

Question from a new sylvaneth player just getting started- how many wyldwoods do you typically need for a 2000 point game? If I pick up a tree lord ancient I presume I need at least 2 of them? 
 I don’t play in a particularly competitive environment so I don’t exactly need to flood the table with them, but it seems like  every other ability needs a nearby wood to work

[Landohammer]

22 hours ago, Pennydude said:

Yes.  The FAQ says that "faction terrain must be set up more than 3" from any other terrain features and more than 1" from any objectives, in addition to any other restrictions that apply to it." (emphasis mine)

Per our battletome only, the restrictions are more than 1" from any other terrain feature, more than 1" away from enemy territory, and more than 6" away from any other objectives.  Now if we only follow our book, we only satisfy one of the two restrictions from the GHB (distance from objectives).  We would be in violation of the "distance from terrain features" part.  

So... the parameters I outlined above are our restrictions for our allegiance ability Awakened Wyldwood.  For all others, it's just more than 1" away from everything.

We should really get a sticky up with our wood placement restrictions (free and summoned). It gets asked alot and I find myself forgetting between games. 

2 hours ago, Azamar said:

Question from a new sylvaneth player just getting started- how many wyldwoods do you typically need for a 2000 point game? If I pick up a tree lord ancient I presume I need at least 2 of them? 
 I don’t play in a particularly competitive environment so I don’t exactly need to flood the table with them, but it seems like  every other ability needs a nearby wood to work

You should definitely have two at all times. Remember that all Sylvaneth wizards know the Verdant Blessing spell that summons a forest. Three is the bare minimum I would personally take to a tournament.

The primary strength of our allegiance abilities lies in teleporting between forests, so having at least two is critical. 

[Trevelyan]

3 hours ago, Azamar said:

Question from a new sylvaneth player just getting started- how many wyldwoods do you typically need for a 2000 point game?

Ah the “how many Wyldwoods?” question. It must be Friday. 

You’ll want at least two, but realistically three or four. More than that could occasionally be useful but start with two or three and see how you go from there. 

[Aezeal]

On 10/31/2019 at 8:34 PM, Pennydude said:

I'm pretty sure it's...

- more than 1" away from enemy territory

- more than 3" away from other terrain features

- more than 6" away from objectives

That's how I've been doing it.  You have to take the worst cases between the GHB2019 and our battletome.

Thx

[Trevelyan]

Has anyone had any experience with Ironjaws since the new Orruk battletome came out? I’ve got a game on Wednesday and while I’ve faced them before I’m wary of making too many assumptions based on obsolete experience. 

How are they playing these days, and is there anything we need to be aware of beside the obvious preparations against being charged (bubble wrap the heavy hitters and prepare to sacrifice Dryads by the dozen)?

Would this be a good opportunity to debut Gotrek Gurnisson? (Full disclosure - I’ll be playing him anyway because I just finished painting him and I’m not going to let him wallow on a shelf). 

[Pigey]

On 10/25/2019 at 7:24 AM, Pigey said:

A while ago I posted a couple of lists and to be honest I did not have much success with them.

So I am trying something new. The idea behind the following list is to give up the idea of getting the priority first turn, and to play more defensively than I used to (no battalion and 10 drops).

Could you tell me what you think of it? My question being, do you think a battalion is mandatory for competitive playing?
 

  Hide contents

 

Allegiance: Sylvaneth
- Glade: Gnarlroot
 

LEADERS
Drycha Hamadreth (320)
- Deepwood Spell : Regrowth
Spirit of Durthu (340)
Arch-Revenant (100)
Branchwraith (80)
- General
- Command Trait : Nurtured by Magic
- Artefact : Chalice of Nectar
- Deepwood Spell : Verdurous Harmony
Branchwraith (80)
- Deepwood Spell : Verdurous Harmony
 

UNITS
30 x Dryads (270)
5 x Tree-Revenants (80)
5 x Tree-Revenants (80)
6 x Kurnoth Hunters (400)
- Scythes
3 x Kurnoth Hunters (200)
- Greatswords
 

ENDLESS SPELLS / TERRAIN / COMMAND POINTS
Spiteswarm Hive (50)

TOTAL: 2000/2000

 

Cheers!

Gonna givee this list a go 3 times this week against:

- the new Ogors

- Khorne

- Gloomspite Gitz

Will share how it went

 

Edited November 4, 2019 by Pigey

[Trevelyan]

5 hours ago, Pigey said:

Gonna givee this list a go 3 times this week

It may already have come up, but why have you gone Gnarlroot rather than Winterleaf? Is it just for the Chalice?

[Pigey]

2 hours ago, Trevelyan said:

It may already have come up, but why have you gone Gnarlroot rather than Winterleaf? Is it just for the Chalice?

Chalice is nice (almost securing  a spell per turn), command trait is nice, the general ability is nice The command ability is OK. I also tend to play rather defensively.

Drycha goes from good to very good also Winterleaf is not bad, but I would not play the same list: I would go for a big pack of 9 Hunters instead of the 6 and 3 and fish for an extra artefact (battalion) to make the Spirit of Durthu more survivable. That would mean less points for units though.

[Aenur]

Hi tree-pepole!

I m a sylvaneth player for the last 4 months. I really like this army and I m into it very much. 

I have a good variety of units and my last acquisition was Alarielle. 

Last night I play a game against a friend who plays Skryre and at the end of the battle I asked myself a couple of questions. In order to understand my background I would say that our local meta is 1500 points played in a 48"x48" board.

My list was something like:

-Alarielle

-2 branchwraiths 

-branchwitch

-outcast battalion: 10/10/5 spites

-KH with greatsword

In a Gnarlroot Glade for some synergy 

Well, I took the first turn  and I realised  that the everqueen has no place to hide or to runaway. It was my most valuable figure and I thought that it make no sense to hide it in a edge of the battlefield, so I decided to move it forward and summon a unit of KH with scytes to make a little distraction. It dosen't work that good as my opponent was able to kill both units without a problem and that was approximately 50% from my list

I know that I don't have to make premature conclusions nor was my best tactic decisions and not all the armies have the same amount of ranged fire power like skryre. But my Alarielle was fulminatied in his very first turn.

I hope I have explained my situation with my poor English and my questions is

-it's worth to hide Alarielle in hidden enclaves?

-should I placed Alarielle away from warp cannons and jezzails range?

-there is a way to protect her from this amount of damage?

-its even Alarielle worth it without a list around her?

The battle at the end was not that bad because other units can hide in the woods and I summoned a pair of them  but this disadvantage in the first round turn the battle into his favor.

Any comment will be lovely 

[Landohammer]

1 hour ago, Aenur said:

 

-it's worth to hide Alarielle in hidden enclaves?

-should I placed Alarielle away from warp cannons and jezzails range?

-there is a way to protect her from this amount of damage?

-its even Alarielle worth it without a list around her?

The battle at the end was not that bad because other units can hide in the woods and I summoned a pair of them  but this disadvantage in the first round turn the battle into his favor.

Any comment will be lovely 

Here lies the biggest issue with Alarielle, she is a magnet for attention and just doesn't have the survivability of other big characters. Also note that as a flyer, she is is not offered any kind of LOS protection from woods and as a behemoth she cannot gain cover. So unless you have large pieces of terrain to completely block her profile out, then she is most likely ALWAYS visible to most shooters.

Here are a few tricks I have picked up over the last few tournaments.

-Take Dreadwood Glade: This will give her the ability to deploy out of range and then teleport herself pretty much anywhere on the map. 

-Take Spiteswarm Hive: This will give her a +3 to movement AND charge making her able to cover more ground on turn one. It also combos well with Dreadwood so you are making 6 inch charges rather than 9 after teleporting. Also provides a free AOE mystic shield during your opponents hero phase.

-Keep a wizard with regrowth nearby and keep mystic shield up as much as you can. 

In my personal opinion Alarielle is competitive at regular levels of play, but she might be a bit inefficient on top tables vs optimized lists. I personally enjoy using her but ONLY in 2000pt+ lists. 

[Pigey]

Had a go against the Mawtribes. We turned out to have a 1000pts game. My friend was just discovering the book, so we figured lower points would make it more manageable for us

I took the following:

Glade: Gnarlroot

Drycha

Branchwraith (general + trait & artefact)

10 Dryads

5 Tree Revenants

3 Kurnoth Hunters with Swords

3 Kurnoth Hunters with Scythes (would have played swords normally, put did not take them today)

 

The more I play Drycha, the better I thinks she is. Tree-Revenants are great.

As for the Mawtribes, they hit hard but it is hard for them to sustain a long engagement. My friend was not lucky with his Ironguts (poor rolling) and I think that cost him the game.

The Butcher is surprisingly tough and hits quite hard. The Tyrant is a beast! The impact hits rule is great and very fluffy too. I'm looking forward to playing against Ogors again  

 

[Ian Wallsh]

9 hours ago, Pigey said:

Had a go against the Mawtribes. We turned out to have a 1000pts game. My friend was just discovering the book, so we figured lower points would make it more manageable for us

I took the following:

Glade: Gnarlroot

Drycha

Branchwraith (general + trait & artefact)

10 Dryads

5 Tree Revenants

3 Kurnoth Hunters with Swords

3 Kurnoth Hunters with Scythes (would have played swords normally, put did not take them today)

 

The more I play Drycha, the better I thinks she is. Tree-Revenants are great.

As for the Mawtribes, they hit hard but it is hard for them to sustain a long engagement. My friend was not lucky with his Ironguts (poor rolling) and I think that cost him the game.

The Butcher is surprisingly tough and hits quite hard. The Tyrant is a beast! The impact hits rule is great and very fluffy too. I'm looking forward to playing against Ogors again  

 

Thanks Pigey, I was wondering what the Ogors are like... 

[jake3991]

I've been doing some thinking on building a workable competitive list with the new book. It seems like most players that have placed well in recent events have omitted the higher price characters (Allerielle, Durthu, etc.) in favor of more Kurnoth hunters.  I personally support this decision but would like to lay out some more critical analysis on it. 

Lets compare Durthu to a unit of 6 Kurnoth hunters, 380 and 400 points respectively.  Take a look at the following expected damage bell curves for both Durthu with +2 attacks for being near a wood and all 6 hunters getting in combat vs a 4+ save unit. 

First here is durthu, pretty solid potential, but a 39% chance you do 6 or less wounds.

Compare that with 6 hunters with Scythes. Note that the chance of doing 6 or less wounds drops to 6% while maintaining similar mean damage and top end. 

 

However this is not the biggest issue with Durthu, after  a mere 3 wounds his damage drops from 6 to D6. This is a pretty substantial drop off after just 3 wounds on a model with no built in method of saving mortal wounds.  However if a unit of Kurnoth hunters take 3 wounds they have no change in damage output as you won't even have lost a single model.

 

Given all this Kurnoth hunters are clearly the reliable source of damage output for 400 points.  But how do you use them?  How do you ensure they don't get killed before they get to combat? How do you get them to combat? How do you deal with the current activation mechanics (slanesh)? I think most players who have thought about this would say use the a combination of dreadwood (this also gives you major flexibility with your other units) and spiteswarm hive.  However  if you take the artifact that adds a cast and attempt throne of vines followed by spiteswarm hive, the probability of getting spiteswarm hive out then not rolling a 1 when you pick a unit to buff with it (assuming you can get a single unit inside its bubble) is not great about (50% excluding dispel opportunists). 

My point here is while spiteswarm hive does not provide the reliable alpha strike that you would hope when combined with a teleport move.  Additionally with most lists bottoming out at 4-5 drops you won't always dictate the tempo of the game.  Given all this I think its best to consider Kurnoth hunters with a screen of your favorite cheap unit so they don't get hit.  If you go first you can alpha if you get lucky  with the hive or turtle on the objectives whilst setting up the Kurnoths in a manner that they will be in combat should somebody charge the screen but unable to be hit and be able to hit back.  If you go second you could consider a counter charge move, if you creative enough you could even use the screen to mitigate the amount of return damage to the hunters.  This is critical because if you are playing a top tier opponent there is a good chance that your kurnoth hunters will be going last in combat. 

Just thought I'd share this with the group as it seems like there is a lot of back and fourth on what to take, how to play it and how to deal with armies that have more powerful books.

 

 

 

[overtninja]

@jake3991 6 Kurnoth with scythes are a mainstay of the list I run, and they definitely outperform Durthu in every game I play. To me, Durthu performs really well as a hate magnet that everyone is scared of, and like any monster he is extremely swingy, and has flubbed every attack I've ever made with him in a game. That said, he's a hero and makes a decent general, and if you invest in both Kurnoth and Durthu together, you've got two massive threats on the field that your opponent has to address and commit a bunch to, and often they can't deal with both.

Personally I think the threat of Durthu's potential damage and his hardiness are most of his draw.