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AoS 2 - Sylvaneth Discussion


Chris Tomlin

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5 minutes ago, kozokus said:

What is the general advice about treelords, i rarely see them.

Is the "no grove" an option witht he +2 charge aura?

Basic treelords are objectively worse than a unit of Kurnoths for the same points. They have a few notional advantages - ranged attack, stomp and spirit paths - but are very swingy, have a plummeting stat line once they start taking damage and never get the benefits that come with taking larger units. 

The general advice is not to take them unless/until they get a 20+ point drop minimum, and even then think carefully. 

I’ve had fun with a Treelord as a mandatory component of a LotC battalion in a Gnarlroot list, but it’s not really competitive. Mostly it doubles up on stomp chances for the accompanying TLA, provides extra ranged support (direct attack and the battalion ability) and can be durable enough when supported by an automatic heal to frustrate a half arsed attempt to remove it. 

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4 minutes ago, Trevelyan said:

Basic treelords are objectively worse than a unit of Kurnoths for the same points

You are only talking in dammage/resilience output here i suppose.

What i find bonkers is the small footprint, the ranged attack, the free teleportation and the locus. Plus, to the contrary of Slaanesh, the locus can be tried on the same unit several time.

So, sure, they hit worse, and tank almost the same, but aren't they more a support unit than the hammer?

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1 hour ago, kozokus said:

You are only talking in dammage/resilience output here i suppose.

What i find bonkers is the small footprint, the ranged attack, the free teleportation and the locus. Plus, to the contrary of Slaanesh, the locus can be tried on the same unit several time.

So, sure, they hit worse, and tank almost the same, but aren't they more a support unit than the hammer?

Well that's kind of the problem; they're more of a support unit in an army that has objectively better support unit choices, and significantly fewer viable hammer choices.  

My opinion: Treelords are essentially a 200 point stomp that can jump through woods. I already have a hard time justifying 300 points for a TLA, which gives you a caster, a leader (with a great command ability), and a free guaranteed Wyldwood. I think both versions honestly need a points drop, since I seriously doubt GW is likely to revamp their warscrolls.

Edited by Sleepa
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1 hour ago, kozokus said:

What is the general advice about treelords, i rarely see them.

Is the "no grove" an option witht he +2 charge aura?

So I think Glades are pretty much compulsory at this point. The army-wide buffs are just too good to ignore. If you need bonuses to charge then Spiteswarm Hive is an excellent choice. It pairs extremely well with Dreadwood. 

The selling point for Treelords is their stomp. Because otherwise Hunters are just flat out better. The problem is that stomp fails 50% of the time. Also he just isn't reliable in combat. Give me 10 spites over him in combat any day of the week. At least I know I will get SOME wounds through with them.

1 hour ago, Trevelyan said:

That’s largely my experience too. Slaanesh can be beaten, and we’ve arguably got a better toolkit than most factions to do it, but you really have to play a completely different game and build a list with them in mind. 
 

The fact that every Slaanesh hero effectively has Stomp, and that every Slaanesh list has a built in Winterleaf double 6s to hit is tough enough. But add the ludicrous amount of easy summoning and you’ve basically got an entire faction that pulls together the best tricks we have available, does them all better and then starts adding extra features on top. 

I don’t know anyone who finds them remotely balanced, including local Slaanesh players (they all agree that the nerfbat is coming). 

Agreed on all points. They usually fight first, they fight extremely well, and they are extremely fast. Even without a single point of summoning they would be a solid army.

But add to that the 900pts of summoning that my opponent had by turn 3, and it just became laughable. I had to kill the same Keeper of Secrets twice, and the same chariot 3 times.  

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4 minutes ago, Landohammer said:
1 hour ago, kozokus said:

What is the general advice about treelords, i rarely see them.

Is the "no grove" an option witht he +2 charge aura?

So I think Glades are pretty much compulsory at this point. The army-wide buffs are just too good to ignore. If you need bonuses to charge then Spiteswarm Hive is an excellent choice. It pairs extremely well with Dreadwood. 

I drafted a janky wombo-combo list with no glade, Warsong and Everdew Vial.
Haven't played  a game with it because my second and third Durthus still need to get painted.

Leaders:
TLA
Spirit of Durthu (General: Warsinger & Everdew Vial)
Spirit of Durthu 2: Electric Boogaloo
Spirit of Durthu 3: Revenge of the Durthu 
Branchwraith (with Spiritsong Stave and Throne of Vines)

Battleline:
5x Spite Revs
5x Spite Revs
5x Spite Revs
20x Dryads

Battalions:
Outcasts

Endless Spells:
Spiteswarm Hive

1 Extra Command point

1980/2000 pts

This was my version of an Alpha striking Slaanesh-style list. Deploy your army just close enough that your TLA can park a woods to set up the 4-Tree charge after your Branchwraith tries for Throne of Vines->Hive, you take your Hive triggers (hopefully no rolls of 1), then port your Monster Mash into and around the trees, and go for broke. Probably Folds to good screening, but has the potential to get luck with stomp redundancy. I'd never take it to a tournament, but I think it'd be hilarious to surprise someone with.

 

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2 hours ago, kozokus said:

What i find bonkers is the small footprint, the ranged attack, the free teleportation and the locus. Plus, to the contrary of Slaanesh, the locus can be tried on the same unit several time.

So, sure, they hit worse, and tank almost the same, but aren't they more a support unit than the hammer?

You know what else provides a ranged attack, a stomp and a spirit path teleport on the same base size? Both the TLA and the Spirit of Durthu. Plus the TLA and Durthu provide other benefits on top.

The TLA is our premier support Treelord model (Durthu is more combat centric) and I like having one whenever I can. The basic Treelord isn’t worth spending points for just as a support. 

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1 hour ago, Landohammer said:

Agreed on all points. They usually fight first, they fight extremely well, and they are extremely fast. Even without a single point of summoning they would be a solid army.

But add to that the 900pts of summoning that my opponent had by turn 3, and it just became laughable. I had to kill the same Keeper of Secrets twice, and the same chariot 3 times.  

Dear god the speed! We used to be relatively fast, back when planting forests wasn’t a pain and you could teleport more than one unit per turn. But so many factions think nothing of moving 12+ inches, or running them charging, or both (I hate The Blisterwotsit FEC Court) that we are really one of the slowest factions around these days. 

Fun fact: by the time you’ve killed a Keeper of Secrets twice, you’ve essentially generated enough summoning points for your opponent to summon it back again! 

As you say, Slaanesh would be credible without any summoning. That they have the best summoning in the game (summon stuff for doing what you were going to do anyway) is a whole punnet of cherries on top. 

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2 hours ago, Sleepa said:

I drafted a janky wombo-combo list with no glade, Warsong and Everdew Vial.
Haven't played  a game with it because my second and third Durthus still need to get painted.

Leaders:
TLA
Spirit of Durthu (General: Warsinger & Everdew Vial)
Spirit of Durthu 2: Electric Boogaloo
Spirit of Durthu 3: Revenge of the Durthu 
Branchwraith (with Spiritsong Stave and Throne of Vines)

Battleline:
5x Spite Revs
5x Spite Revs
5x Spite Revs
20x Dryads

Battalions:
Outcasts

Endless Spells:
Spiteswarm Hive

1 Extra Command point

1980/2000 pts

This was my version of an Alpha striking Slaanesh-style list. Deploy your army just close enough that your TLA can park a woods to set up the 4-Tree charge after your Branchwraith tries for Throne of Vines->Hive, you take your Hive triggers (hopefully no rolls of 1), then port your Monster Mash into and around the trees, and go for broke. Probably Folds to good screening, but has the potential to get luck with stomp redundancy. I'd never take it to a tournament, but I think it'd be hilarious to surprise someone with.

 

Durthu 2: Electric Boogaloo could possibly be the greatest idea for a list name in the history of list names. I will be stealing that :)

I love fun lists. but I gotta say that winterleaf would just flat out make this list better. Exploding 6's on Durthu are terrifying and being able to give himself  the ability to  attack twice is insane.

If near a forest that would be 10 swings with exploding 6's and two impales. Whats that average? Like 34 wounds before saves? 

 

 

 

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12 hours ago, Landohammer said:

Just got back from a GT. Went 3-2 with both losses being to Slaanesh. My list is at the bottom. Here are my thoughts.

Alarielle performed well overall but mostly because of metamorphosis. That spell swung several games for me. Other than that she just jumped around grabbing objectives and getting aggro. The 4+ to hit on the beatle broke my heart several times. 

Hunters and Eels were, unsurprisingly, the star of the show. I found myself wishing I had more of each. I was pretty much always able to get 5 hunters in combat. 

Spites were middle of the road as expected. Treelord was hot garbage haha. 

Dreadwood was a solid glade, and I now definitively put it up there with Winterleaf in competitiveness. 

Slaanesh is a really big problem in the meta IMHO. They dominated (and won) this  tournament and my games vs them felt like a completely different experience. Looking forward to some nerfs to bring them back in line with the rest of AOS. 

 

Alarielle (treelord summon)

Branchwraith

20 Spites

20 Spites

5 Spites

6 Greatsword Hunters

6 Morrsarr Guard

Spiteswarm Hive

Don't forget Alarielle's beetle gets +1 to hit units with 5 or more models, and with Gnarlroot you can reroll 1s. So in some situations it can be brutal.

11 hours ago, Trevelyan said:

 but Sylvaneth can be a lot more expensive than other factions to play. That’s one of the reasons you may see less of them about. 

Yep... for full flexibility you need 3-4 boxes of wildwoods, which is like 1/3 - 1/2 the cost of some armies. 
Then if you want to have most of the options for Alarielle's summon, you're looking at an extra 600+ pts that need to be purchased, built and painted. 
Same goes for the 20-40 extra dryads you can expect to summon with the branchwraith. That's another 2 boxes of dryads you're going to need. 

You basically need 2-2.5 armies worth to run an Alarielle list. 

Other factions do have summoning but often not to this extent. Even Slannesh, it's more about replacing Keepers that were killed, or dropping some extra fiends. They probably don't need as many different options on top of the base list. 

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2 hours ago, simakover said:

is using ally a good thing for sylvaneth? sometimes see morrsarr or incantor on lists

I've been using 3 to 6 Morrsarr in all my games. They are very effective allies because of the significant movement boost they offer. Plus their combat effectiveness is largely built into their warscroll, so they don't lose out much by not being in an idoneth list. 

If you put them into the right thing, for example elite units or rendable monsters, they really blend. 

After the one charge though they are fairly useless if stuck in combat. 

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9 hours ago, Inquisitorsz said:

Don't forget Alarielle's beetle gets +1 to hit units with 5 or more models, and with Gnarlroot you can reroll 1s. So in some situations it can be brutal.

 

For sure. I take that +1 every time I get it! But the catch with alarielle, is that she is one of our few sources of high rend. Also, we already have great answers for horde units. So more often than not I end up having to send her into the big gribblies. Sadly, I think the Talon of Dwindling has averaged more damage than the beatle over my three recent tournaments. It doesn't degrade and I usually get at least one 6. 

Gnarlroot is fine, but Winterleaf or Dreadwood are infinitely more valuable on Alarielle. Getting exploding 6's/double activate or a condition-less teleport are much more impactful. If I needed the reroll 1's, I could just burn a CP and have the best of both worlds.

 

 

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Hello folks, i'm trying this sylvaneth list for 750 pts based on two start collecting boxes
Can you give me your opinion, or suggest any changes on list? artifact or spells taken?
Grove Gnarlroot
Leaders:
Tree Lord Ancient (general) (300)
         Spell-Lore: Regrowth
         Command Trait: Nurtured by magic
BranchWraith (80)
         Spell-Lore: Throne of Vines
BranchWych (80)
         Spell-Lore: Deadly Harvest
         Artefact: Chalice of Nectar
BranchWych (80)
         Spell-Lore: Verdurous Harmony
Battleline
10 Dryads (100)
10 Dryads (100)
 
Total (740) pts
 
i hesitate with Winterleaf also
Edited by Anca
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6 hours ago, Anca said:
Hello folks, i'm trying this sylvaneth list for 750 pts based on two start collecting boxes
Can you give me your opinion, or suggest any changes on list? artifact or spells taken?
Grove Gnarlroot
Leaders:
Tree Lord Ancient (general) (300)
         Spell-Lore: Regrowth
         Command Trait: Nurtured by magic
BranchWraith (80)
         Spell-Lore: Throne of Vines
BranchWych (80)
         Spell-Lore: Deadly Harvest
         Artefact: Chalice of Nectar
BranchWych (80)
         Spell-Lore: Verdurous Harmony
Battleline
10 Dryads (100)
10 Dryads (100)
 
Total (740) pts

I think you definitely need more troops, be it battleline or "other". If you bought two start collecting boxes, then I know that only gives you 32 dryads, 2 treelords, and 2 branchwyches to work with.  I'd suggest cutting one branchwych in favor of some more bodies. If you're thinking about what to buy next; I expect you should be able to find some Kurnoth Hunters on the secondary market (Try to ask local players if there's a community buy and sell group on Facebook or something),  or grab some more dryads and try to make those units of 20 instead of 10. The problem with units of 10 dryads; is they lose their bonus save the second you lose one model, and they quickly become vulnerable to battleshock tests. 20 is a big enough unit to lose a few, then grow back a few more with the Verduous Harmony spell. The list you drafted up does a lot in the hero phase, but will find itself dangerously susceptible to strong any strong melee unit.

For example: If you have another friend new to the game with the Soul Wars box set, I could easily see a unit of Evocators cutting down your entire list on their own.

 

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13 hours ago, Sleepa said:

I think you definitely need more troops, be it battleline or "other". If you bought two start collecting boxes, then I know that only gives you 32 dryads, 2 treelords, and 2 branchwyches to work with.  I'd suggest cutting one branchwych in favor of some more bodies. If you're thinking about what to buy next; I expect you should be able to find some Kurnoth Hunters on the secondary market (Try to ask local players if there's a community buy and sell group on Facebook or something),  or grab some more dryads and try to make those units of 20 instead of 10. The problem with units of 10 dryads; is they lose their bonus save the second you lose one model, and they quickly become vulnerable to battleshock tests. 20 is a big enough unit to lose a few, then grow back a few more with the Verduous Harmony spell. The list you drafted up does a lot in the hero phase, but will find itself dangerously susceptible to strong any strong melee unit.

For example: If you have another friend new to the game with the Soul Wars box set, I could easily see a unit of Evocators cutting down your entire list on their own.

 

Agreed .... but maybe just maybe, with good wood placement, placing chalice on the Wraith (instead of wasting a turn with throne) and summoning 10 Dryads per turn might be enough to gum up the enemy. Yeah, you're going to loose most of them. 

750pts is hard to build :D Especially when throwing in a TLA.

@Anca How about the following. With this you can teleport everything except the Wraith in turn one.  20 Dryads will last longer.  Also maybe put the Tree Revenants in frontline combat, then teleport off to an objective before they all die. Sadly I suspect you might not have enough Dryads to summon (another 16 on your 32 would definitely be enough once stuff starts dying)
 
Grove Gnarlroot
Leaders:
Tree Lord Ancient (general) (300)
         Spell-Lore: Regrowth
         Command Trait: Nurtured by magic
BranchWraith (80)
         Spell-Lore: Verdurous Harmony
         Artefact: Chalice of Nectar
Battleline:
20 Dryads (200)
10 Tree Revenants (160)
 
Total (740) pts
 
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22 hours ago, Anca said:
Hello folks, i'm trying this sylvaneth list for 750 pts based on two start collecting boxes
Can you give me your opinion, or suggest any changes on list? artifact or spells taken?
Grove Gnarlroot
Leaders:
Tree Lord Ancient (general) (300)
         Spell-Lore: Regrowth
         Command Trait: Nurtured by magic
BranchWraith (80)
         Spell-Lore: Throne of Vines
BranchWych (80)
         Spell-Lore: Deadly Harvest
         Artefact: Chalice of Nectar
BranchWych (80)
         Spell-Lore: Verdurous Harmony
Battleline
10 Dryads (100)
10 Dryads (100)
 
Total (740) pts
 
i hesitate with Winterleaf also

You don't have anything that can kill models off objectives. 

I would drop two branchwyches and build one of your treelord models as Durthu. Merge your dryads into a unit of 20 and then just take a throwaway unit of 10 dryads or 5 Revenants. Give regrowth to the Branchwraith.

Take Harvestboon as your glade. Most armies won't have an answer to deal with a Dancing Durthu at 750pts. Use regrowth to keep Durthu as healthy as possible.

A trick to fielding start collecting boxes, is that you sometimes end up with too many branchwyches and not enough dryads. I have occasionally used branchwych models as Dryad champions, and its totally fine to summon models from your dead pile. 

 

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I keep seeing lists with Branchwraith + Throne and no artefact

In lists where you can't reasonably give her an artefact, I was fairly certain Thrones is a trap, so did some maths....

Without thrones you'll be summoning 4 times (turns 1 to 4) at 58%, giving 2.32 successful summons on average.

With the throne, first let us assume throne works, then you'll be summoning 3 times (turns 2, 3 and 4) at 83%, giving you on average 2.49 successful summons.  On a bad day, you'll fail thrones (17% chance) and the following turns you'll really need Dryads, so will be stuck at 58%, giving 1.74 average. If I've got the maths right, then we're down to 2.36 average successful summons overall.

Plus with throne we're down to max 3 successes instead of 4, losing the very useful early summon. Plus you can't move her out of danger without losing your bonus.

Edited by a74xhx
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3 hours ago, a74xhx said:

In lists where you can't reasonably give her an artefact, I was fairly certain Thrones is a trap, so did some maths....

You need to consider a few other points:

1) the chances are that someone will try to unbind her summoning. Adding Thrones doesn’t just help with marginal casting rolls by turning a narrow failed cast into a narrow successful cast, it also helps make a successful cast harder to unbind. 

2) Some lists have more than one Branchwraith. Standard practice would be to have the second ‘wraith summon on the first turn while the first sets up the Throne. That gives you the advantage of Throne in subsequent turns without reducing the total number of summons. 

3) You’ve got to give her a spell, and the other options are likely to be even less appealing as she frequently won’t have LoS for healing or be close enough for something offensive. Just because she has Throne doesn’t mean she has to cast it in every game. 

I wound the worry too much about the need to stand still. I very rarely need to move a summoning Branchwraith, Throne or not. She sits in backfield and churns out the Dryads. 

EDIT 1: Also, the number of casting rolls you make is far too few to start worrying about statistical averages. The difference between 2.32 and 2.49 average successful casts is abstract nonsense when you’ll only be making single digit number of rolls. 

EDIT 2: You also need to consider the role you expect those Dryads to play. You only need early Dryads if you want them to play a more offensive role. But if you want them to cover backfield objectives against fast movers in the late game then the better summoning chance in a turn 2+ is worth more than the chance to simply summon more small units. Remember that the aim isn’t just to summon the Dryads but also to use them effectively. An increased chance at fewer summons that you can use well is better than a lower chance of more summons that you don’t really have a plan for. 

Edited by Trevelyan
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1 hour ago, Aenur said:

Can someone clarify if it's possible to get a +4 to cast in the 2nd turn if you cast a second time throne of vines with the same wizard?  I didn't find anything against.

RAW you can. There are no general rules that prohibit the bonus from stacking. 

It’s worth noting that the previous version of the spell in the old battletome explicitly prohibited stacking but that line was removed from the new version. 

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1 hour ago, Aenur said:

Can someone clarify if it's possible to get a +4 to cast in the 2nd turn if you cast a second time throne of vines with the same wizard?  I didn't find anything against.

Yeah, throne plus stave is amazing :D

 

1 minute ago, Trevelyan said:

You need to consider a few other points:

1) the chances are that someone will try to unbind her summoning. Adding Thrones doesn’t just help with marginal casting rolls by turning a narrow failed cast into a narrow successful cast, it also helps make a successful cast harder to unbind. 

2) Some lists have more than one Branchwraith. Standard practice would be to have the second ‘wraith summon on the first turn while the first sets up the Throne. That gives you the advantage of Throne in subsequent turns without reducing the total number of summons. 

3) You’ve got to give her a spell, and the other options are likely to be even less appealing as she frequently won’t have LoS or be close enough for something offensive. Just because she has Throne doesn’t mean she has to cast it in every game. 

I wound the worry too much about the need to stand still. I very rarely need to move a summoning Branchwraith, Throne or not. She sits in backfield and churns out the Dryads. 

Very good points.

With double wraith, yeah, that's a strong way of doing it, which I hadn't thought about. I always assumed second wraith was solely as backup incase the first died. 

Definitely seen a few lists with single wraith and throne and no artefact though. Often on lower point lists, where there isn't much to play with and no artefacts spare.

The other problem with this is that first summons is likely to be out of unbind range (assuming setup), and I feel that first turn summon is fairly important. So, at 1000 points I'm still not sure if I'd cast throne. Maybe it's useful just to take in case, for example, I run into a high casting army and really need better rolling.

I always plan that on turn 4, after my final summons, the wraith would teleport or run closer to the action, and throw a spell turn 5 into the action. In reality, I'll forget or it won't be possible to do anything or the game will finish earlier.

 

 

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1 hour ago, a74xhx said:

Maybe it's useful just to take in case, for example, I run into a high casting army and really need better rolling.

That’s the most common scenario. If you have Throne but don’t need it then you’ve not really lost much. But if you need it and don’t have it then you can spend a frustrating game being swatted down by unbinding wizards on the other side. 

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