Sylvaneth really need some love

[cyberhawk94]

Idk if anyone would be interested, but I recently put together a "houserule" allegiance for Beasts of Chaos for much of the same reasons are are stated in this thread about Sylvaneth (the warscrolls/points costs are mostly fine, the allegiance abilities have simply been left behind at this point. Most armies get ~4 allegiance abilities + a possible terrain, BoC gets 2 allegiance abilities on any given model because of how they wrote them & counting the herdstone as one)

 

Nothing I would try to take to a FLGS or anything, but its made games more fun with my casual friend group, I can actually play my BoC without having to default to the "horde of bodies that just play objectives" playstyle that they are stuck in at the moment. (link for reference) 

 

I definitely wouldn't mind putting together something similar for Sylvaneth if there is interest, though since Im not as familiar Id need help with what the problems are / rules from the old book that should be brought back

[Fyrm]

So, I’d like to point out that the theme of the Broken Realms is that the Aelven Gods are active. And Alarialle is an Aelven God.

 

I'm not saying we’ll definitely see a Broken Realms Alarialle, but I’d be surprised if we didn’t see something for Sylvaneth in one of these books. 

[Doko]

I hope a alarielle book and or inside of the book or released one month later the kurnothi.

Also these kurnoti are inside of sylvaneths and can be played as kurnothi or as sylvaneth (as bonespliters in big wag)

 

I can dream!

[herohammer]

The issue with sylvaneth isn’t that they were left behind, their book isn’t that old. The sylvaneth book was questionable when it came out and got worse when the faction terrain faq further limited wyldwood placement. I think point drops on the big stuff other than drycha would really help the army. Going through the units I think this pretty much;

Alarielle-Should drop proportionate to the free treelord. I think her “base” cost of 420 is fine. But if the treelord was dropped to 150 I would like her to drop to 570.

Drycha-fine

Ylthari and co-should drop to around 120 or 130

Branch wraith-fine

Branchwytch-should drop to 60

Spirit of durthu-should be 240 or 250

TLA-should be around 210

Arch revenant-fine

Dryads-fine. I can actually see them lose horde discount in line with daemonettes and witch elves. I think GW is doing away with horde discounts for units that encourage you take hordes in other ways.

Tree revenants-fine

Spite revenants-fine

Sword hunters-drop to 180

Scythe hunters-drop to 170

Bow hunters-drop to 180 or 170

Wild hunt-drop to around 80 or 90 in line with Mogwaeth from DoK

Treelord-drop to 150

 

If you run a balance of big and little stuff that provides savings of maybe 50-200 points depending on what you were running or even more if you were running a monster mash. 
 

I think sylvaneth can get by fine with fairly weak army rules if the points were not so far off for a number of units making it all but impossible to run a “balanced” force. I would rather the army rely less on wyldwoods but as far as simple GHB changes point adjustments could really help the army. As far as broken realms style warscroll rewrites I would most like to see TLA get either a cast bonus or second cast, durthus get either tougher or more attacks, and maybe something to make the branchwytche less squishy kind of like the new slaanesh caster has.

 

[Landohammer]

Points arent the issue. The army lacks a clear play-style or vision. It needs a complete rewrite from the ground up. Competitively the codex is on a different planet than ones released afterward. 

Our allegiance abilities are tied to having multiple forests, which is extremely unreliable. An allegiance ability should never be subject to being blocked by terrain or having to cast a spell. Imagine any other army that has to cast a spell or bring a 260pt unit to activate their PRIMARY allegiance ability.  In addition many armies get terrain in addition to their primary allegiance abilities. Skaven just straight up drops both pieces needed for their teleport. 

We also should have battleline unlocks like nearly every other army. Treelords should be battleline in certain subs. 

If alarielle is going to be 600+ points she needs to be equal to teclis or morathi in board presence. The cost of summoning a unit should not be factored into her cost. If i wanted that unit i could just bring it without the risk of losing it to before it was summoned. I would rather she be unkillable like Morathi or have spells that alter the entire board like Teclis. 

I play 7 armies competitively but Sylvaneth is my baby. Yet it remains likely the worst codex written for 2nd edition. Points alone cant fix it 😭

[Santious]

On 2/21/2021 at 9:28 AM, Landohammer said:

Points arent the issue. The army lacks a clear play-style or vision. It needs a complete rewrite from the ground up. Competitively the codex is on a different planet than ones released afterward. 

Our allegiance abilities are tied to having multiple forests, which is extremely unreliable. An allegiance ability should never be subject to being blocked by terrain or having to cast a spell. Imagine any other army that has to cast a spell or bring a 260pt unit to activate their PRIMARY allegiance ability.  In addition many armies get terrain in addition to their primary allegiance abilities. Skaven just straight up drops both pieces needed for their teleport. 

We also should have battleline unlocks like nearly every other army. Treelords should be battleline in certain subs. 

If alarielle is going to be 600+ points she needs to be equal to teclis or morathi in board presence. The cost of summoning a unit should not be factored into her cost. If i wanted that unit i could just bring it without the risk of losing it to before it was summoned. I would rather she be unkillable like Morathi or have spells that alter the entire board like Teclis. 

I play 7 armies competitively but Sylvaneth is my baby. Yet it remains likely the worst codex written for 2nd edition. Points alone cant fix it 😭

100% , Alarielle does not feel like the God of life at all. She was brought back by the hunters to be in their image making her more aggressive to fight in the lore so she should be more durable. Not to copy Teclis but SHE should have the aura to let her tree folk negative on a 5+ and even once per battle str8 up bring a unit back to life or on a 4 + . Also the big boy trees (treelord ,durthu, ancient) should have something like ignore 1 rend to make them more durable . And the branchwych and wraith should be able to dip if they take damage kinda like protection of nagash but like a protection of alarielle and when they take a would u can place them in a wylewood tree nearby.

[Landohammer]

To be honest I would prefer we get away from multiple forests altogether. Its not practical having to bring 3-6 to games, and its doubly infuriating when armies like Lumineth, or Tzeentch can easily stop any attempt to summon it.  Also we have all had tournament tables be crowded to the point that faction terrain can't be dropped anywhere meaningful.

Lets build the allegiance abilities into the army itself and let the faction terrain supplement it. 

For example, maybe Sylvaneth can teleport between any two pieces of terrain. Perhaps the forest just provides bravery and magic buffs when close to it. 

[Cynric]

Or allow the forest to replace/overgrow other terrain or be allowed to be anywhere that doesnt actually displace an opponents model... more than one way to fix the problem.

 

If the design intent is for the firest to be an active part of the army, fine, just make it not suck.   The rules generally dont allow me to prevent my opponent from deploying his army, why does it stop mine...

Edited March 23, 2021 by Cynric