Sylvaneth - Broken Realms Wishlist

[Arzalyn]

Its common knowledge around the internet that Sylvaneth isn't in a good place after the last battletome. Points change alone aren't helping fixing the problems the allegiance and warscrolls have. Luckly the Broken Realms series has brought warscrolls change for both Daughters of Khaine and Idoneth Deepkin (and maybe more after the Teclis book). The series has been said to focus on the Aelven Gods, which Alarielle is part of.  With that in mind, I would like to ask other Sylvaneth players what kind of change they hope to see when the Sylvaneth time in the series come.

So far we had the following content within Broken Realms: Morathi:
- New Allegiance
- New Sub Allegiance
- Warscrolls rewriten
- New Battalions
- Changes in pitched battle profiles (points, possibly battlefield role)

Broken Realms: Teclis can add other options, but for the sake of the discussion lets restrict ourselves to those possibilities. 
 

[Landohammer]

-New Alarielle warscroll

-Rewrite Sylvaneth allegiance rules to be meaningful and not tied to fickle terrain pieces.

-Rewrite/add subfactions

-New Kurnoth Hunters with Bows warscroll

-New Treelord Ancient Warscroll. 

These 5 changes are what we need the most IMHO

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[BrocknerTheBear]

Treelord ancient/Durthu should gain access to a "mount traits/leviadon traits esc set of rules that give them more flexibility and power. 

Kurnoth hunters need the 2 shots on thier bows to be 3+ 3+ -2  with 2 damage to give them some purpose and give the army a rend option that isn't scythe hunters. 

Alarielle needs some "seasons" based abilities ie: each turn she can be in one of her aspects for +1 save, +2 attacks etc that has to be different each turn.  And maybe add a rule that makes units charging her take mortal wounds (ie the roots and vines burst from the ground to protect her) 

As for the allegiance ability.....that's the tough one. What they have is not good enough. But go too far and it's easy to get into crazy territory where everyone complains about them *cough serephon cough*

[Arzalyn]

16 hours ago, Landohammer said:

-Rewrite/add subfactions

-New Treelord Ancient Warscroll. 

I agree with everything you pointed out, just wanted to ask about those two in particular. What rules you think would make a good sub faction? (considering no other changes to our allegiance and wyrdwood in general)

For the Ancient I really hope he get a second cast and maybe a +1 to cast when near a wood at the very least... do you think it needs anything more?

16 hours ago, BrocknerTheBear said:

Treelord ancient/Durthu should gain access to a "mount traits/leviadon traits esc set of rules that give them more flexibility and power. 

As for the allegiance ability.....that's the tough one. What they have is not good enough. But go too far and it's easy to get into crazy territory where everyone complains about them *cough serephon cough*

That would be intersting! There is any precedence to no-command traits for things without a mount/not a vehicle? 

I honetly doubt they would change the allegiance, even a new one looks a little sketchy as the factions that got one (cities and stormcast), were more for flavour. I do wonder if the wyrdwood got a rework (to make it have more significant effects and less placement problems) and Alarielle + Ancient got some bonus to casts... maybe it would be enought?

 

 

[Landohammer]

7 minutes ago, Arzalyn said:

I agree with everything you pointed out, just wanted to ask about those two in particular. What rules you think would make a good sub faction? (considering no other changes to our allegiance and wyrdwood in general)

For the Ancient I really hope he get a second cast and maybe a +1 to cast when near a wood at the very least... do you think it needs anything more?

 

 

 

The underperfoming subfactions like Oakenbrow, Heartwood, Ironbark and Gnarlroot need to just be rewritten from the ground up.  Subfactions should be equally appealing and be closer in power levels to Winterleaf, Dreadwood, and Harvestboon.  Some examples would be Oakenbrow unlocking Treelords as battleline and Gnarlroot giving all casters an additional cast and a unique spell. Maybe Heartwood could be +2 to run and charges. Ironbark should be a 6++ FNP and access to any duardin unit as allies.  

The artefacts/command abilities/traits should then supplement those playstyles.

We need functional in game buffs in line with the other factions. This whole "+1 bravery" or "reroll battleshock" sub factions abilities are absolute trash compared to armies like Seraphon (-1 damage) or Khorne/FEC (multiple activations). 

Treelord Ancient should, at the very least, get a better warscroll spell, a second cast, and +1 attack. A character version of a unit should never be worse than the original unit.  

Side note, I also think Treelords Impale should be rewritten to where its more meaningful. Maybe make it a flat 3 damage.  Hoping for a 6 on a single attack is meaningless 85% of the time. 

[Fyrm]

I'd really like to see special mount trait type thingies for Treelords. Call them "Sprite Traits", representing the sprites that take residence in that Treelord. And then rewrite Oakenbrow to give extra maybe!!!

 

I agree TLA should get something to casting. Second spell/unbind per turn would be the most interesting. Or a bonus based on how many Trees are within 3" could be cool.

 

I feel the items are really on point. Especially for our casters, but there's a lot of really nice one.

 

I feel like they should give some sort of ability to let you turn terrain pieces into Trees. I don't think they should remove the ability to summon them, because most people who'd play Sylvaneth already have a ton lol, but an option to deal with over cluttered tables would be nice. Maybe add it to the spell every Sylvaneth wizard gets? Or perhaps even just add a faction rule that is "Whenever you would summon Trees, you can instead turn another terrain piece into Trees" type ability. It shouldn't remove base rules or traits, and maybe also not on faction terrain? But it would be very helpful.

 

Buff the Bow Hunters!!! I love that model, will likely run them no matter what, but they tend to be a bit weak for their role.

[Landohammer]

18 hours ago, Fyrm said:

 

 

I feel like they should give some sort of ability to let you turn terrain pieces into Trees. I don't think they should remove the ability to summon them, because most people who'd play Sylvaneth already have a ton lol, but an option to deal with over cluttered tables would be nice. Maybe add it to the spell every Sylvaneth wizard gets? Or perhaps even just add a faction rule that is "Whenever you would summon Trees, you can instead turn another terrain piece into Trees" type ability. It shouldn't remove base rules or traits, and maybe also not on faction terrain? But it would be very helpful.

 

 

Great idea!

I also had a friend suggest that Treelords  count as a forest for the purpose of teleporting. I thought that was a cool idea too. 

But yea its super frustrating carrying 5 forests to an event just to have a cluttered table with no room to place them. 

If they want us to a be a terrain focused army then thats fine or whatever, but they need to make sure we can actually have our terrain on the table. 

 

 

 

[gregoire.fevre.52@gmail.co]

Hello,

 

Sorry for my English, it's not my native language

Here are the changes that I think the faction should be able to have to be balanced and playable:

* Pass the prayer forest invocation (not disipable) 1 invoc by round with bonuses to throwing near the woods - known by all characters
* Facilitate the laying of forests on table
* Reinforce magic with a second cast for Drycha, TLA and a better spell area that is really impactful
* Self-healing Sylvaneth units using dead models within the unit size limit, have a generic healing like Living city or nearing woods
* Make the TL, TLA more tanky with a deletion of the renders -1 or equivalent -1 damage undergone (possibly a fnp 5++ native?)

 * Give back key and impacting roles to the spite and tree-revenant which are more there to be lines/tax than really impacting and elite units (exeption made for the placement of tree revenants via TP)
* Create new entries in the battletome (lack of diversity) with a better impact, fast entry type cavalry - the role can be given to the returning tree?
* Improve movement or charge bonuses off endless spell that promotes ambush
* Reinforce the role of wood with a negative modifier to movement, damage that occurs more often and bonuses (to the cast for our sorcerers, difficulties to hit for dryads, save to kurnoth, ...)
* Rework the profiles of TL, TLA and Durthu to have flat damage without changing the number of attacks (ex: Avalenor)

* Improve Kurnoth with Arc (3 attacks on 3+ 3+ -1 2)
* Having real command skills, today only those of allegiance and Arch Revenant are real bonuses that are not recoverable generically by a cast/PC

And I think I’m still a long way from what would be enough.

But these are leads that I would like to see happen

[Osprey07]

I'd like to see a sub faction that allows 1 in 4 units to be wanderers

[Popisdead]

On 2/21/2021 at 1:42 PM, Landohammer said:

-New Alarielle warscroll

I think Alarielle is 75% good.  She lacks a DPR which really hurts.  Seeing Sigvald get a 3+/4+, Alarielle getting a 4+ would go a long way especially with the healing.  The issue i have with her is her terrible to-hit scores.  Heroes with 3+ or 4+ feels like 6th ed Fantasy which was bad.  There is no reason there isn't more 2+ in AoS for To Hit.  Alarielle's beetle shouldn't be only 1 better than goblins to hit.  That is ludicrously insane.  Also let's stop costing her at 600+.  Especially since the cost of summoning is arguably something not to be taken into consideration as it's enough of a mechanic in the game and becoming more an unmeasurable like synergy, traits, spells, etc.  Plus it invalidates quickly with looking at the cost of what she's summoning.  20 Dryads vs 10 Spites?  c'mon...

On 2/21/2021 at 2:06 PM, BrocknerTheBear said:

Kurnoth hunters need the 2 shots on thier bows to be 3+ 3+ -2  with 2 damage to give them some purpose and give the army a rend option that isn't scythe hunters. 

If you took rend away from Scythes (equally giving it to someone else) it would invalidated the  balance between Swords and Sythes which right now is pretty good.  Also think about 2 x 6 of those Bows in Living City.  Hitting on 2s with those traits?  I guess GW would sell a lot of bow Hunters....  

On 2/22/2021 at 7:04 AM, Landohammer said:

.  Some examples would be Oakenbrow unlocking Treelords as battleline and Gnarlroot giving all casters an additional cast and a unique spell. Maybe Heartwood could be +2 to run and charges. Ironbark should be a 6++ FNP and access to any duardin unit as allies.  

Treelord Ancient should, at the very least, get a better warscroll spell, a second cast, and +1 attack. A character version of a unit should never be worse than the original unit.  

Side note, I also think Treelords Impale should be rewritten to where its more meaningful. Maybe make it a flat 3 damage.  Hoping for a 6 on a single attack is meaningless 85% of the time. 

TL BL would be really neat to see.  However Models on objectives win games and I don't want every monster to count as 10 models.  Behemoths should be breakthrough or tanks.  Personally I would prefer the dmg output of monsters being huge to validated them not capping objectives.  

In 6th ed the Ancient was a better version that was a Lord who got even better with magic items (possibly,... a spite?).  

I agree but I also feel.,.. he's no longer the fighter as much as the mage?  I would say the overall issue is the lack of solid fighting output from both the Treelord and Ancient for their points cost.  The problem is they don't bring enough to the table gaining the casting with the change in the armour buffing Ancients had.  

In 40k D6 dmg has been changing to 2D3 and then Melta went from D6 to D6+2.  I would rather see anything that amortizes out the low rolls.

20 hours ago, Fyrm said:

I'd really like to see special mount trait type thingies for Treelords. Call them "Sprite Traits", representing the sprites that take residence in that Treelord.

In early 8th ed there was a rumour about a Treeman with a howdah for 20 GG.  I assume it was a playlist PDF trait which also helped GW weed out the leaks (leeks? har har).  

36 minutes ago, Osprey07 said:

I'd like to see a sub faction that allows 1 in 4 units to be wanderers

We might see Kurnothi before and since they have the Sylaneth keyword it may be the long term goal for this.  

[Arzalyn]

A agree with many of the ideas that were exposed here, but wanted to share some of my toughts as well. There is a lot of problems that I think need to be andressed, but we would need a new battletome for this to happen (when khaine and lumineth are getting one after their gods broken realms, so there is a chance we get one too!). Limiting the changes to what we saw so far in the broken realms, I would sugest the following:

Rewriten Warscrolls 

- Treelord Ancient - Make him cast two spells a turn, and maybe give him a +1 to cast rolls if near a forest (honestly this should be in the wyrdwood scroll, but i doubt they would change it outside of the tome). The reasoing is quiet simply, outside of Alarielle we have no two cast wizards and many of our good effects depend on getting spells cast (making woods, summoning dryads, casting the hive endless spell, healing our monsters). This dependence turn the Spiritsong Staff in a almost mandatory artifact pick, to be able to cast all those spells or get better casting bonus with the Throne of Vines. With two casts the ancient can give us a good mage and help our other 23 artifacts choices see more play.

- Branchwych - Honestly I just want her to have a function in the army other than the Vortex gimmick. The ideia of a "combat" mage is interesting, but honestly her output is so low that most of the time you better getting a second/third Wraith. In the Lore its their job to recover lost the lamentiri of the fallen, so maybe give her a "when a sylvaneth model dies within X" effect. Something similar to the Bonereapers Harvester effect would make sense with the "regrowing" flavour we have and would keep her as the "mage that wants to be in the middle of the fight" role.

- Alarielle - I like Alarielle to a degree, but she got left behind the other gods. For the Goddess of life all she do is summoning some models and healing or no-battleline units. Other than making her know all the spells in our spell lore, I unsure of what to sugest. Maybe she could revive 1 time per game? She need something to make here more than a 400 (if you discountthe maximum amount of points she summon) points D3 healing on your hero, 3 cast and some damage.

- Bow hunter - As others have said, 3 attacks on +3/+3/-1/2 should help. Maybe make them ignore the woods as well? Its a little dumb that our most important aspect (creating woods) negatively affects them...

New Sub Allegiances

Honestly I just hope we get one sub allegiance with a optional command trait and/or artifact (the ones that specify the hero that must get the trait/artifact) . We have 4 artifact tables which we can only use if we get a battalion (going without a sub faction is not a choice with how little our allegiance give us without woods on the field).

New Battalions

Nothing in particular here, I just hope we get at least 2 battalions with reasonable units in them as we need them to get artifacts outside our allegiances.

Changes in Pitched battle profiles

Just one change: Make regular Treelords battleline in Oakenbrown glade. Would it make this sub faction strong? Probably not, but it would help it promote a "Monster army" playstyle in a faction and make its general trait a little less bad... 

 

Other than that we could really use some changes in the ways we can get woods ont he table. Makin the normal Treelord count as woods or giving all our wizards/our spell lore a spell that make other terrain pieces count as woods (as othe have suggested) would help  giving us more options to get the woods we need without making the board a mess.  After seeing the Seraphon spell lore interacting with terrain I totally think that should be something we do as well! Maybe a new sub allegiance/battalion could give this effect until we get a new tome. Or maybe give us a new Sylvaneth focused allegiance that don't resolve around having woods on the battlefield.

[Frowny]

My idea: 

1) all wildwoods are a single base of the new model, not the whole circle thing.

2) all wildwoods perks (cover, -1 to hit for dryads etc.) Are granted to any unit where all models are within 6inches of any one or combination of wildwood trees.

3) teleport from within 6 inches of any combination of trees to wholly within 6 of a wholly different combination.

4) 1st spell cast per turn gets a free tree within 12 of the caster (18 of general)

5) 1st command ability on your turn grants a free tree within 12 of the user (18 of general)

6) standardize placement of woods to be anywhere more than 1 inch from other models and terrain-easier to place

My logic-

Now trees are smaller and easier to place and there are guaranteed. You get get them in 2 different ways and aren't entirely dependent on casts. Allowing combinations to cover the requirements means you can continue your cover as you advance up the board. I think this would create the right combination of covering your advance in woods and dependence on woods but also with more flexibility in how to actually use them.

I'd also pondered rules where enemies could attacks he trees like models (cutting them down) but that seemed a little difficult to implement

 

[Cynric]

If its a wish list, i would wish to return to the old school wood elf army and get the gang all back together.  Something simple like allow half the units to be wanderers and keyword them all sylvaneth so things synergize and the forests dont kill them.

Beyond that maybe change the wildwood deployment to be a bit more flexible and allow them to be placed anywhere they fit without moving other models, including encircling them.

None of this will help much against top teir competitive armies but id be happy.

[Craze]

I just have 4 very achievable points that would help us a lot from my perspective:

1.) Give Alarielle survivability, e.g. 5+ FNP

2.) Make TLA a meaningful caster, e.g. with a 2nd cast and +1 near woods.

3.) Make Free Spirits batallion run and charge/shoot

4.) Do something about Bow Hunters

[Landohammer]

15 hours ago, Arzalyn said:

 

- Branchwych - Honestly I just want her to have a function in the army other than the Vortex gimmick. The ideia of a "combat" mage is interesting, but honestly her output is so low that most of the time you better getting a second/third Wraith. In the Lore its their job to recover lost the lamentiri of the fallen, so maybe give her a "when a sylvaneth model dies within X" effect. Something similar to the Bonereapers Harvester effect would make sense with the "regrowing" flavour we have and would keep her as the "mage that wants to be in the middle of the fight" role.

-

Yea this is a solid idea. The Branchwych is essentially an apothecary. She should have a FNP aura and/or also just provide a d3 wound heal/rez. I would be fine with taking her wizard abilities away to gain this. 

 

16 hours ago, Popisdead said:

I think Alarielle is 75% good.  She lacks a DPR which really hurts.  Seeing Sigvald get a 3+/4+, Alarielle getting a 4+ would go a long way especially with the healing.  The issue i have with her is her terrible to-hit scores.  Heroes with 3+ or 4+ feels like 6th ed Fantasy which was bad.  There is no reason there isn't more 2+ in AoS for To Hit.  Alarielle's beetle shouldn't be only 1 better than goblins to hit.  That is ludicrously insane.  Also let's stop costing her at 600+.  Especially since the cost of summoning is arguably something not to be taken into consideration as it's enough of a mechanic in the game and becoming more an unmeasurable like synergy, traits, spells, etc.  Plus it invalidates quickly with looking at the cost of what she's summoning.  20 Dryads vs 10 Spites?  c'mon...

 

Alarielle doesn't really do anything that a Keeper of Secrets or mounted terrorgeist doesn't already do better, and for 200+ less points.  I would be fine with her dropping her summoning ability altogether along with the relevant discount. She is probably worth 380-420 pts.

 

[Popisdead]

3 hours ago, Landohammer said:

Yea this is a solid idea. The Branchwych is essentially an apothecary. She should have a FNP aura and/or also just provide a d3 wound heal/rez. I would be fine with taking her wizard abilities away to gain this. 

 

Alarielle doesn't really do anything that a Keeper of Secrets or mounted terrorgeist doesn't already do better, and for 200+ less points.  I would be fine with her dropping her summoning ability altogether along with the relevant discount. She is probably worth 380-420 pts.

 

I agree with both.  Granted I don't think we will see a lot of new KoSes.  They cannot buff themselves.  So unless you take two in Invaders (for cmd point spaming) I don't think they will be nearly as popular or effective as before.  

[Fyrm]

So...I just noticed something. HoS seem to have traded their "fight last" ability in for a "no pile in" ability. What would people think of that on our TL variants? It'd be weaker in some ways, useless in some, but in others it could completely negate an attack, and as long as it keeps going continue to negate it. I've seen some people talk about allying in the Sharks for that ability combined with Household, if we could instead just have that baseline on the TL in a Household that might be something?

 

Either way, still think all the other discussed buffs to TL variants should still be on the table, but it got me thinking and I kinda like this version better. It'll mean people won't feel bad for charging in and being told to wait for us to pummel you, but with clever positioning and a bit of luck you can completely lock down someone. And I enjoy Sylvaneth for their interesting and creative play style~

[Frowny]

Fight last is much much stronger than the no pile in thing. Don't get me wrong, no piling in is useful, but only when you can near-guarantee it on a target, like you can with 2 sharks (89% chance from 18 inches away). Either way, I think treelords need a lot more damage. 

I still think without fixing woods themselves and the core allegiance abilities, warscroll changes won't fundamentally help the army. Even if you make the army playable based on warscrolls alone, it won't FEEL like sylvaneth- you can make anything cheap enough and it will be strong, but the current problem is more that the actually allegiences and suballegiances basically don't work or don't do anything. 

I'd much prefer all woods to be single models and all of their affects extending to within 6 inches of any number of models. It would immediately fix 2 problems- difficult to place woods and the outrageous cost of buying enough. 

[Fyrm]

So, with Broken Realms Be’lakor, anyone else beginning to worry we won’t see a BR:Alleirial?

[Arzalyn]

1 hour ago, Fyrm said:

So, with Broken Realms Be’lakor, anyone else beginning to worry we won’t see a BR:Alleirial?

Not yet... Unless Sylvaneth is one of the factions featured in Be'lakor

[Craze]

Do we know how many Broken Realm books GW plans to release?

[Popisdead]

17 hours ago, Fyrm said:

So, with Broken Realms Be’lakor, anyone else beginning to worry we won’t see a BR:Alleirial?

No.  We have a covid release schedule.  There could be lots of books, no one honestly knows they just speculate.

6 hours ago, Craze said:

Do we know how many Broken Realm books GW plans to release?

I was wondering that.  With uh,.. Psychic Awakening in 40k every army got featured in a release (DW and Harlies got a WD article at least) but has GW said Broken Realms will have that number of book?  I know releasing campaign books for 40k generally garners more sales and right now for AoS they can be more sparse.  I wouldn't honestly expect BR: Alarielle over BR: "something else, oh and it has some Sylvaneth warscrolls"  Just because the army needs to be addressed doesn't mean we are guaranteed a new book.  (New) Model sales drives the company.

[Fyrm]

Well, the reason I bring it up is because, while we definitely need an update, that doesn’t mean GW will give us one anytime soon. Lots of factions have gone without updates for long stretches. 
 

the main argument I saw for a BR:Allarielle was that the series was going to be focused around each Aelven god, but Be’lakor kinda raises a question mark to that statement. Sure, the initial information seemed to point that way, but that doesn’t mean it is the case. 
 

I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. 

[Gecktron]

One reason that speaks for a Broken Realms: Alarielle is Soulbound. 

Quote

BLACKENED EARTH

Blackened Earth is the second campaign for Soulbound and will see heroes travel to the city of Greywater Fastness in Ghyran. Greywater Fastness is an industrial behemoth and its smog-shrouded streets are filled with churning refineries and gun foundries. This relentless industrialisation has decimated the surrounding land and has led the city to the brink of war with the neighbouring Sylvaneth. The Soulbound are placed squarely between these two factions and must try to prevent open war from erupting between the forces of Order. However, those within the city would like nothing more than an escalation in conflict, and will do whatever it takes to trigger a war.

Blackened Earth explores the cost of war and presents players with difficult decisions where there is no right answer. It is meant for new Soulbound heroes and is expected to release in PDF in Q3 and will be in stores in Q4.

The current Campaign, Shadow in the Mist, set in Anvilgard, heavily ties in with the events of Broken Realms Morathi. They released the Anvilgard City guide directly after BR:Morathi and they incorporated many elements from that book. They even stated they work very closely with the AoS team. Blackened Earth will be the first expansion not primarily set in Aqshy. So leaving the Realm of Fire for Greywater plus the focus on the conflict between the city and the Sylvaneth there makes me think a Broken Realms book themed around this is very likely. 

[Fyrm]

Fair. Neither of the other BR books seem to have much connection to Soulbound that I know of, but fair.