AoS 2 - Sylvaneth Discussion

[Pennydude]

If everything goes up in points with the WarRev staying the same, it’s fine as is. He has a 4+ FNP, full access to spell lore, still gets Look Out Sir, and now you can hide him in a woods. 

However, I do wish he had a 4+ save but at least we now have our own 2 cast wizard that doesn’t require a battalion.  He will be fine in combat while behind a screen since it has a 3” reach on the vine attacks. 

Don’t write this one off just yet. 

[Abstract_duck]

Glad about being able to place wyldwoods..

So, considering the upcoming changes, what about lists?

I was wondering about a 2k gnarlroot list myself, with the new Allarielle & Warsong, ofcourse.

1x Alarielle 

1x Warsong, General & Chalice

1x Branchwraith  (perhaps Spiritsong Stave)

1x Drycha

---

Battleline

20x Spite-rev

20x Spite-rev

5x Tree-rev

---

Battalion: Drycha's spitegrove.

Alternatively, drop the battalion & Drycha, and swap out one team of Spite-revs for 30x Dryads & some kurnoths or the like:

1x Alarielle

1x Warsong

1x Branchwaith

--

30x dryad

10x spite

5x tree revs

6x Kurnoth Scythes(or 2x3 swords)

-

Spiteswarm hive

What are your thoughts? An alternative to Kurnoth spam? Wasting the Alarielle heal, without Kurnoths and Durthu's?

 

Edited May 29, 2021 by Abstract_duck

[5kaven5lave]

Doesn’t look like Alarielle has an after-save which is a massive negative. You can have all the heals in the world but a 3+ won’t allow you to survive a single phase against many of the big hammer units in the current meta, never mind a double while you wait for your next hero phase. You can just nuke her off and then you’re sat with an underpowered ~1200 points sitting on the table. It’s grim.

Flute guy looks like hot garbage. Of all the amazing things you could do with the song, +1/-1 bravery is so uninteresting. And 275 is easily twice the going rate for a 2-cast wizard.

Willing to change my mind but it doesn’t look good early doors. 

[Abstract_duck]

1 minute ago, 5kaven5lave said:

Doesn’t look like Alarielle has an after-save which is a massive negative. You can have all the heals in the world but a 3+ won’t allow you to survive a single phase against many of the big hammer units in the current meta, never mind a double while you wait for your next hero phase. You can just nuke her off and then you’re sat with an underpowered ~1200 points sitting on the table. It’s grim.

Flute guy looks like hot garbage. Of all the amazing things you could do with the song, +1/-1 bravery is so uninteresting. And 275 is easily twice the going rate for a 2-cast wizard.

Willing to change my mind but it doesn’t look good early doors. 

I'm hoping the woods flexibility is going to negate a lot of problems. Being quite a bit weaker than avarage is not going to be too much an issue if your army can pop up everywhere throughout the battlefield. The Doubleturn against you also seems to be a bit less of a problem now that you do not necessarily have to go first if you want to be able to place woods. I feel like (Or, at least hope), with the revenant and smaller woods, it might've become much easier to just pop up behind the enemy backlines. Not saying Sylvaneth is the most competitive, but they might actually fulfill a strong mobility niche with the new wood rules

[Arzalyn]

15 hours ago, Mirage8112 said:

I think people are underestimating how big these changes are. 

The changes to our Wyldwood is really significant. It looks like we can set up a single wood and use it as a teleportation node, while using 2-3 wyldwoods allows us to block line of sight a little better (now it looks like the LoS needs to go 3” through a WW. Makes me want to read the measurement wording a little closer). It also looks like the line of sight rules have been changed to being dependent on the models wounds characteristic (looks like 10 to me) rather than their ability to fly. To me, that sounds like it cuts KO shooting in half as only the ships will be able to fire through the LOS blocking woods. The buff to the damage roll is huge as well, the ability to do MW on a 4+ (The base looks like it’s 6+, but it could be 5+, making it 3+) next to a wizard or endless spell means it will be putting out MW at least once per turn, per unit (since it triggers in both our charge phase and the opponents charge phase). Considering how many units are appearing as wizards now (hello lumineth!) that’s a big change and makes our woods scary again. 

The new caster looks like it fills a nice gap in the army. 4+ shrug is huge especially when it has access to all the Sylvaneth spells, and a bonus to casting and 2 spells (including the healing spell). It’s 3” range means it can easily hide behind a unit of hunters or a dryad line and still attack without opening itself up to retaliation attacks. That means it can heal itself and bring one of it’s hunter bodyguards back.

Totally agree with you, it may seen we got little changes, but those changes are HUGE.

The woods are probably the most important changes, been able to place a single tree for the relevant buff + another teleportation/summoning hub is probably the most important change. Now we can actually place some trees! The damage the trees deal looks more reliable too, of all our heroes only Durthu and the Arch rev aren't wizards and we have some good faction endless spells that are quiet cheap. 

I also think people are under selling the Warsong revenant. Sure 275 is expensive, but I think he is a lot strong than it look. The 2 casts + access to all the spell lore is really important here. The 2 casts let him cast the throne of vines (on a 4 thanks to his +1 near a wood) and after that you have a easy +3 for your next cast, which can be any spell from the lore which are all pretty good. You can place a new wood or summon the Hive reliable now! Want even better chances? Sure give him the Chalice in Gnarlroot or even the Vesperal Gem. Does he need it? Unless you are going against teclis or a slann/kroak, probably not.

Does all of those changes make Sylvaneth a top tier army? I doubt, but I think we will have a much easier time playing against the middle of the field. I wouldn't be surprised if we move from the bottom to the middle of the tiers.

[EntMan]

1 hour ago, Abstract_duck said:

Flute guy looks like hot garbage. Of all the amazing things you could do with the song, +1/-1 bravery is so uninteresting. And 275 is easily twice the going rate for a 2-cast wizard.

275 for a wizard for my Living City who can cast Verdant Blessing makes me smile.

[Pennydude]

4 minutes ago, EntMan said:

275 for a wizard for my Living City who can cast Verdant Blessing makes me smile.

Hate to burst your bubble, but Verdant Blessing is not a part of the Lore of the Deepwood. It’s a separate spell that all Sylvaneth wizards know while in a Sylvaneth army.

[EntMan]

2 minutes ago, Pennydude said:

Hate to burst your bubble, but Verdant Blessing is not a part of the Lore of the Deepwood. It’s a separate spell that all Sylvaneth wizards know while in a Sylvaneth army.

Sorry,my bad. When I googled Lore of the Deepwood I found a list of spells that included Verdant Blessing. Oh well, I had a few minutes of dreaming of new possibilities for my Green Alliance.

[Arzalyn]

2 hours ago, Abstract_duck said:

Alternatively, drop the battalion & Drycha, and swap out one team of Spite-revs for 30x Dryads & some kurnoths or the like:

1x Alarielle

1x Warsong

1x Branchwaith

--

30x dryad

10x spite

5x tree revs

6x Kurnoth Scythes(or 2x3 swords)

-

Spiteswarm hive

What are your thoughts? An alternative to Kurnoth spam? Wasting the Alarielle heal, without Kurnoths and Durthu's?

I Like this one more, but I would suggest you change the 10 spites for 5 tree revs and add one of our endless spells (wyrm or tree) as you have 6 cast. I doubt the 10 spites would do much and with less units the tree revs teleport helps cover more ground.

[Mirage8112]

3 hours ago, 5kaven5lave said:

You can have all the heals in the world but a 3+ won’t allow you to survive a single phase against many of the big hammer units in the current meta, never mind a double while you wait for your next hero phase.

Dear God why would you put her in solo vs a big hammer unit? Unless you were trying to finish the game early so you could go get a beer. 
 

5 man T-Revs/10 man dryads (once t revs are gone) or horde spells are the answer to hammer units. Chaff, nuke, repeat. Her spear throw from 24” away wouldn’t hurt either.

[Bvajen]

  

2 hours ago, Mirage8112 said:

Dear God why would you put her in solo vs a big hammer unit? Unless you were trying to finish the game early so you could go get a beer. 
 

5 man T-Revs/10 man dryads (once t revs are gone) or horde spells are the answer to hammer units. Chaff, nuke, repeat. Her spear throw from 24” away wouldn’t hurt either.

I totally agree with you. I've seen so many arguments today about how Alarielle will get nuked before she can heal, and I've honestly just been baffled by that logic. She should be holding back for at least a couple of turns and using her (now improved) spear and her spells (from the full lore now) to dish out some damage, and only committing to combats against units that aren't obviously going to massacre her. She's got enough range (and can even see through the forests now!) that she doesn't have to position herself so aggressively as to invite an immediate charge, and if need be can literally bubblewrap herself with a unit of 20 dryads from out of thin air if things are looking too dangerous.

I don't think Alarielle is going to be amazingly competitive, but I think she'll be able to hold her own in more casual games with some creative playstyles.

Edited May 29, 2021 by Bvajen

[Rhetoric]

Access to the whole spell lore is a game changer for Alarielle.  In conjunction with trees being easier to place now as well, a spell like Treesong actual is useful.  

[Tizianolol]

I wanna underline how important is that sylv ww now dont block line of sight for sylv units. Immagine bow huntets into a ww , they can shoot , opponent cant shoot you. They are important in this meta imo.

 

The question is : now i consider a sylv ww a single tree ( not 3 models but just one) can 3 hunters be in cover if they inside one single citadel model? Or I need 3 of them for that?:)

Edited May 29, 2021 by Tizianolol

[Enoby]

I just had a game against the new Sylvaneth with the new Slaanesh. Without going into too much detail, I won 16-2 on turn 2 and the Sylvaneth player said Alarialle felt worse than before

It could have just been down to bad luck, but with no bonus to cast or many combat buffs, she killed all of 5 blissbarb archers (6+ save 1 wound models) and then was slothful stupored into uselessness. 

It could well have just been bad luck, but their complaint was that they didn't feel strong in any particular area. Their combat is swingy, their defences rather low, their spell casting is unreliable - they still don't feel to have a defined role, just pretty good at most things. 

Hopefully it was just one bad game, but I thought it would be useful to share experiences against the new scroll   

[Pennydude]

I think she’s pointed for the new rules set so we really need to wait and see what happens. 

[Mirage8112]

57 minutes ago, Enoby said:

It could have just been down to bad luck, but with no bonus to cast or many combat buffs, she killed all of 5 blissbarb archers (6+ save 1 wound models) and then was slothful stupored into uselessness. 

So how did that combat come about? Did he shoot them with the spear/magic? Did he charge them? Did you charge him? Did you kill her?
 

And how the hell did you win 16-2 on turn 2? what battle plan were you playing? 

[Enoby]

2 minutes ago, Mirage8112 said:

So how did that combat come about? Did he shoot them with the spear/magic? Did he charge them? Did you charge him? Did you kill her?
 

And how the hell did you win 16-2 on turn 2? what battle plan were you playing? 

Scorched earth - the one where you can burn objectives at round two, I captured six round one and burned three round two for six (and kept the other four). It's quite a swingy battleplan tbh. 

They ran Allarialle up the right flank and charged into the chaos warriors and blissbarbs that were holding my two back objectives. She rolled really low on the MWs (and a chaos warrior negated one). She tried to shoot Synessa and failed (or maybe I passed the save - it was unlucky either way). She failed to cast/was dispelled of all damaging spells unfortunately, and she fluffed all but one attack on the blissbarbs (which killed 5).

I didn't charge her, I just cast slothful stupor which meant she couldn't charge until my next hero phase, and zoned her out. They surrendered round two as they only had a treelord and Alarialle (who couldn't charge) left, whereas I don't think I'd lost a full unit.

I should restate a lot of it was bad luck - I don't think she'd normally be this poor - but I thought it would be useful to have at least some report of her performance. I think with some more even just average luck she would do better.

[Mirage8112]

4 hours ago, Enoby said:

Scorched earth - the one where you can burn objectives at round two, I captured six round one and burned three round two for six (and kept the other four). It's quite a swingy battleplan tbh. 

So, let me get this straight.

You captured 2 out of her 4 objectives in the first turn. She didn’t try to screen you out? All she needed to do was keep you from getting with 6” of it. 

Then in second round you burned 3 objectives. So you captured another objective in her territory in your second turn and then immediately burned all three of them at the end of your turn. So she wasn’t able to keep you 6” away from the next objective OR take back any of the objectives you took from her OR take any of your objectives from you? 
 

4 hours ago, Enoby said:

They ran Allarialle up the right flank and charged into the chaos warriors and blissbarbs that were holding my two back objectives. She rolled really low on the MWs (and a chaos warrior negated one). She tried to shoot Synessa and failed (or maybe I passed the save - it was unlucky either way). She failed to cast/was dispelled of all damaging spells unfortunately, and she fluffed all but one attack on the blissbarbs (which killed 5).

  
So Alarielle just ran up the flank, unsupported, failed her shot, rolled low for her charge damage, fluffed nearly all her attacks. she either failed her cast rolls or had her spell dispelled. She wasn’t able to really push anything off the objective despite what must be your entire army capturing all the objectives on his side of the board. 

How did she expect to capture the objective with only her? And if both units were guarding two objectives 18” apart, why would she expect to capture both?  I mean sure, if she wiped out both units that would have been great, but she can only hold 1 objective at a time. Not to mention basically just begging to get charged in the next turn without support.  

 

4 hours ago, Enoby said:

I didn't charge her, I just cast slothful stupor which meant she couldn't charge until my next hero phase, and zoned her out. They surrendered round two as they only had a treelord and Alarialle (who couldn't charge) left, whereas I don't think I'd lost a full unit.

 

So she failed her unbind attempt, and then she can’t charge. She didn’t try to move (fly over enemy models)?  Cast verdant blessing to summon a single WW and teleport out? She was just stuck? Did she attempt to use her summoning at all?

And then, at the bottom of round 2, you wiped out her entire army except for a 1 treelord and Alarielle. 

 

4 hours ago, Enoby said:

I should restate a lot of it was bad luck - I don't think she'd normally be this poor - but I thought it would be useful to have at least some report of her performance.

It sounds like you just rolled over her. She probably felt like she got hit by a truck. 

 

4 hours ago, Enoby said:

I think with some more even just average luck she would do better.

Truth be told thats a tough battleplan (as you said, swingy), that really favors the Slaanesh player (esp if you dont get first turn). But aside from that, I think your victory really came down to generalship. It sounds to me like there were some tactical errors made that were compounded by very bad rolls. 

I feel like this is a fair assessment of the game, because it sounds like it wasn’t Alarielle that let her down. In fact, if she had performed amazingly, and wiped out everything holding those two objectives in your territory AND was able to claim one of them (because she can only hold one or the other) AND burn the objective, she still would have had no army with which to continue.

Also, on top of this, she only participated in one round of combat (since she wasn’t able to charge in the second round) so there was literally one set of rolls by which to gauge her changes.    

Sometimes nothing goes right, and it happens to the best of us. That being said, I don’t think this match is the result of the warscroll being underpowered or overcosted. Even super-powered units can fail to win us the game if they’re not in the right place at the right time for the right reason. 



 
 

Edited May 30, 2021 by Mirage8112

[Grimmlock619]

4 hours ago, Enoby said:

Scorched earth - the one where you can burn objectives at round two, I captured six round one and burned three round two for six (and kept the other four). It's quite a swingy battleplan tbh. 

As far as I understand it, you can only burn a single objective at a time. It's reads "at the end of each of their turns, a player can raze AN objective they control in their enemies territory."

I'd also be interested if they ran her in Gnarlroot. And She really shouldn't be move up field turn 1. I consider and use her and as an end of round 2/ round 3 closer and a very powerful support.

[Tizianolol]

On 5/29/2021 at 1:57 AM, Mirage8112 said:

I think people are underestimating how big these changes are. 

The changes to our Wyldwood is really significant. It looks like we can set up a single wood and use it as a teleportation node, while using 2-3 wyldwoods allows us to block line of sight a little better (now it looks like the LoS needs to go 3” through a WW. Makes me want to read the measurement wording a little closer). It also looks like the line of sight rules have been changed to being dependent on the models wounds characteristic (looks like 10 to me) rather than their ability to fly. To me, that sounds like it cuts KO shooting in half as only the ships will be able to fire through the LOS blocking woods. The buff to the damage roll is huge as well, the ability to do MW on a 4+ (The base looks like it’s 6+, but it could be 5+, making it 3+) next to a wizard or endless spell means it will be putting out MW at least once per turn, per unit (since it triggers in both our charge phase and the opponents charge phase). Considering how many units are appearing as wizards now (hello lumineth!) that’s a big change and makes our woods scary again. 

The new caster looks like it fills a nice gap in the army. 4+ shrug is huge especially when it has access to all the Sylvaneth spells, and a bonus to casting and 2 spells (including the healing spell). It’s 3” range means it can easily hide behind a unit of hunters or a dryad line and still attack without opening itself up to retaliation attacks. That means it can heal itself and bring one of it’s hunter bodyguards back.

I think Alarielle’s changes are the sleeper hit here. The changes to her healing and giving her access to all the spells is a big boost to her survivability. If your stupid and try fighting a couple of bloodthirsters solo she’s still going to get insta-rekted, but honestly if you play her like that you’re doing it wrong.

 

I had to read the entry twice, but it really looks like it’s set up to be a big monster killer and nothing else. The damage profile is only 4+/3+, (with ways to improve between wargroves, CA’s and items) but it seems you really do roll a dice for every wound that goes through. Then you roll for 6’s before removing the model. This seems to include 1 wounds models. Which means unless you roll 6’s it wont kill 1 wound models. The chance to auto remove big multi-wound models who get in base contact with her is nothing to sneeze at. Put 3 wounds through with it and you have a 50% chance to remove that mega-gargant in a single combat.  

This looks like a nerf, but most of her damage has been shifted to her other profiles. She got a +1 on her hit/wound for the beetle and the flat damage + healing on her spear with a +1 to hit turns her into a decent ranged damage dealer. Her beetle also does d6 Mw on a 6 when rolling for charge damage. The ability to retreat and charge means you’ll be able to do that every turn. 

Her spell has gone from a MW on a 4+ to a 3+. Now that we can put 1 wood down instead of the mandatory 3, she stands a really good chance of popping smaller support heroes in the back line and turning them into trees. 

 

She did. She’s counted as being the general in addition to whoever else you pick. That and the above seems well worth the 540 point price tag to me.
 

Lets be real: it’s not that hard to roll a 7. Or a 5. And you really should have plenty of other casts to draw out unbinds and whatnot. 

Lets also not forget that a new edition is dropping pretty soon. The bravery rebuff on the new caster seems like an odd choice, but it might tie into an altered game mechanic. If not, combine with spites for a -3 bravery debuff (-4 with wraithstone) makes her primal terror spell a lot more reliable. A d3MW 10” bubble ain’t nothing to sneeze at, and at a potential -4 makes it a threat even to bravery 10 units; and absolutely terrifying to bravery 6-7 units.   

About wildwood, if I put 3 khurnos hunters into 1 single citadel model, do you think they are considered in cover? 

[5kaven5lave]

12 hours ago, Mirage8112 said:

Dear God why would you put her in solo vs a big hammer unit? Unless you were trying to finish the game early so you could go get a beer. 

It’s a good point, so obviously you’re screening, but 6 eels, Sentinels, Morathi bow snakes could pin cushion her or blast her in pretty short order regardless of the quality of your screens because of range / fly etc. Not much fun taking a god to have to hide her in the back corner because she’s squishy. Super happy to eat my words but I’m not convinced. 

[5kaven5lave]

18 hours ago, EntMan said:

275 for a wizard for my Living City who can cast Verdant Blessing makes me smile.

Awesome, he’s gonna look amazing in a nicely painted City army, make sure you post up some photos when he’s done. 

[EntMan]

1 hour ago, 5kaven5lave said:

Awesome, he’s gonna look amazing in a nicely painted City army, make sure you post up some photos when he’s done. 

Apparently Verdant blessing is not technically part of Lore of the Deepwood, so alas my city is still restircted to one Wyldwood (via a Treelord Ancient) So maybe not worth the points or money investment after all.

[Rhetoric]

13 hours ago, Enoby said:

I just had a game against the new Sylvaneth with the new Slaanesh. Without going into too much detail, I won 16-2 on turn 2 and the Sylvaneth player said Alarialle felt worse than before

It could have just been down to bad luck, but with no bonus to cast or many combat buffs, she killed all of 5 blissbarb archers (6+ save 1 wound models) and then was slothful stupored into uselessness. 

It could well have just been bad luck, but their complaint was that they didn't feel strong in any particular area. Their combat is swingy, their defences rather low, their spell casting is unreliable - they still don't feel to have a defined role, just pretty good at most things. 

Hopefully it was just one bad game, but I thought it would be useful to share experiences against the new scroll   

How can she “feel worse than before” lol.  Her Spear and Antlers statistically do more damage.  Sounds like somebody ran a 700 point support piece into your army and expected a different outcome.  

[Enoby]

17 minutes ago, Rhetoric said:

How can she “feel worse than before” lol.  Her Spear and Antlers statistically do more damage.  Sounds like somebody ran a 700 point support piece into your army and expected a different outcome.  

I think their point was that they'd have preferred her to be cheaper and be able to save the points on something else - more that she didn't feel 140 points better.

I think the reason they ran her in was because I had pushed all of my killy units up to their side and only had some objective capturing chaff on my side, which Alarialle should have been able to deal with (she was in less danger on my side of the board, if not for Slothful Stupor). That's not to say my opponent played her perfectly (or even well), but it wasn't as bad as just pushing her forward into a murder wall and hoping. Alarialle had summoned a treelord to try deal with the injured KoS and Dexcessa, and sent herself to deal with the other weaker half of my army.