sylvaneth Help! About to try 1500 points of Sylvaneth but concerned about model count.

[Ganymede]

My friends and I have only played AoS a few times and we're going at it again this week.  We decided on 1500 points and I definitely want to try out Sylvaneth.  The list I'm thinking of bringing is 1520 points (we've always allowed +/-25 as a house rule) and includes the following:

- Treelord Ancient (General)

- Branchwych

- Loremaster

- Tree Revenants x5

- Tree Revenants x5

- Dryads x10

- Dryads x20

- Kurnoth Hunters x3

- Kurnoth Hunters x3

- Household Battalion

- Gnarlroot Battalion

I know one of my opponents will be bringing a horde of Bonesplittaz infantry and I'll probably be looking at 3-4 units of 20+ orcs plus archers and some maniaks or big spears.  That's a lot to deal with for such a small army.

The plan is to put woods everywhere and funnel his big units through chokes to limit their effectiveness.  The Revenants will likely stay together as a group.  I just chose to have two fives instead of one ten for flexibility and in case one fails a charge or they need to split up.

As for the hunters, I'm not sure if I should just go two with bows or one with scythes, as I don't know whether I have the melee power to compete with all those orcs without some more big hitters.  I could also consider cutting one unit all together for more dryads or something.

Loremaster is mainly there to buff the TLA.  If there is a better 80-100 point order wizard I haven't considered, let me know!

I haven't really decided what items/traits/spells to pick yet.  Probably an acorn for sure, not clear on what else I need.

Mainly I'm just concerned that I will be overwhelmed by numbers and won't be able to handle it adequately.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

[Dracothjay]

So horde armies are the perfect food for kurnoths with greatswords. You could take bows, but I find a unit of three underwhelming. Need to be at least units of 6 to really lay the hurt.

that unit of 10 dryads, is that a formation requirement? At 10, they don't do much so I'd assume they are your rear guard ready to defend your heros?

id play on your woods massively here. Create choke points, like you said and I'd also wait for them to come close to the woods, then drop your kurnoths from the realm roots and charge them out. Greatswords definitely. If he's bringing a monster then maybe the other unit with scythes, but he horde troops will be the most deadliest of the lot. 

As for your TLA, are you planning on committing him to close combat? Briarsheeth and okaenshield armour are pretty good defensive builds. Give him verdants blessing, branchwych and regrowth so she can heal your TLA up. 

Thats what I'd do anyway. Let me know how it goes chief.

[Ganymede]

Thanks for the advice!  So I've modified the list a little to taste and based on your suggestions.

I think I am going to go with double greatsword hunter units instead of the bowmen.  I've replaced the Loremaster with another Branchwych.  Both of them will carry Ranu's.  I did some research and it seems you are allowed two of the same artefact.  I'm thinking I give both Verdant blessing.  Since I will definitely have first turn if I want it thanks to the whole army being in one battalion, I should be close to guaranteed two casts of blessing right off the bat, and possibly one more wyldwood from the TLA ability with luck.  TLA will be getting Gift of Ghyran and Briarsheath with Regrowth.  Basically I want the TLA to be able to stand in there the whole game, and with that much regen he should not really be going down.  10 Dryads are for screening the wyches or delaying a unit if needed.  Wyches' primary focus once they've put down enough wyldwoods will mostly be resurrecting units and throwing out mystic shields.  If I can keep my forces adequately positioned I should have the command ability through the hunters on most of the map, as well as a wych in position to resurrect most units when needed.

The only thing I'm really unsure about are the revenants.  I don't know how much work they'll really be able to put in.  I need at least 1 unit of 5 for Household, but 5 alone seems lackluster which is why I took a second unit to support them.  I can't cut more than one revenant or one dryad unit since we play 2000 point rules (need 3 battleline) at 1500.

I think I'm getting a little more confident looking over the list and what it can do.  If I can control the board he should have a hard time bringing his numbers to bear.

Thanks again!

[Mirage8112]

4 hours ago, Ganymede said:

The only thing I'm really unsure about are the revenants.  I don't know how much work they'll really be able to put in.  I need at least 1 unit of 5 for Household, but 5 alone seems lackluster which is why I took a second unit to support them.  I can't cut more than one revenant or one dryad unit since we play 2000 point rules (need 3 battleline) at 1500.

If hunters are the army's hammer, T-rev's are the scalpel. You wouldn't use a scalpel to remove bone, or to hack off an arm. You use a scalpel to precisely remove a troublesome area. 2 groups of 5 is plenty for such a task if you keep them together. They are also a reliable source of rend. A couple points to remember:

1. They are fast. If you have 2-3 separate forests on the board, there's literally nowhere they can't be in a single turn. 

2. Six inch pile in. This is brutal against lone models. You can easily pile in and surround just about anything. You can either cut off a retreat by piling in around your target, or you can tie up more of the target units back-line models preventing them from piling into whatever they are fighting. I had 2 units of T-Rev's kill a unit of 5 Retributors because they were able to pile in in such way that the retributors couldn't get everyone in combat at once; meaning I could pick them off one at a time. 

3. 1 re-roll per phase: A single unit of T-rev's get a reroll every phase. Movement/charging/combat/battleshock. This makes them very reliable chargers (handy since their teleport can bring them up to 9" of an enemy). 

4.Chaff. T-Rev's are awesome as sacrificial lambs to prevent nasty charges from going off. If you suspect you opponent is going to charge in the next turn, teleport your T-rev's between them and the charging unit. That way they waste their charge on the rev's (who will likely pull off a coupe wounds before they die) and then you'll be able to counter charge with something more durable. 

Good luck! 

[Aezeal]

I'd get Drycha against horde armies. I'd drop stuff to accomodate her.. she also gives the loremaster a 2nd target for the spell which is nice since she's VERY fast and you could buff her the first turns before the TLA gets into combat. Not easy to fit her in without cutting some other nice stuff (first cut should be 5 revenants ofc :D)

[swarmofseals]

I think your concerns are somewhat justified, but your basic plan is strong. Use terrain to ensure that the opponent can't bring the full weight of numbers to bear at once. I see later on that you have decided to drop the loremaster, which I think is smart. It's not that high impact without something like Alarielle or Spirit of Durthu to use it on. I'm not sure that I love a second branchwych in that spot though. I might prefer a skink starpriest, which has a nice spell that debuffs the enemy's chance to hit. This can be really useful when combined with Briarsheath and the various tree-related stomp debuffs. I think you could also just use the spot for more troops. 

As to the debate over tree-revs,  @Mirage8112 describes the unit well. They are pretty bad on paper (very points inefficient in both offense and especially defense), but they have a lot of flexibility and can pull off some nice tricks. Correct me if I'm wrong, Mirage, but you seem like a player that has a very clear plan on how you want the game to play out. I think you probably use tree-revs well because you have a realistic idea of what they can do and integrate their use into a detailed blueprint of how you want the first couple of turns to go. If a player doesn't think like this, they may not get as much about tree-revs. 

That said, I think you should be careful about the way you think about your list construction. I think the argument of "this unit can't do much on its own, so I should take twice as many so that they can be more effective" is a very dangerous line of reasoning. It's like doubling down on a bad bet (not that I think tree-revs are a "bad bet" exactly). Sometimes if you are forced to take a suboptimal choice in order to get something else that you want it's better to just accept the sunk cost. I think this is particularly true at lower point values where small differences in efficiency make a larger difference. I think if you have a clear game plan that calls for two units of tree-revenants to function then you should absolutely take two units. Otherwise, I think you should drop the second unit and use the points elsewhere. Personally, I'd lean toward this second option if you are concerned about Bonesplittaz and horde armies in general as a lot of the more effective uses of tree-revs are negated by the kinds of things that savage orruks do. They are likely to have a ton of models on the table, which means finding a gap to drop your tree-revs where you want them will be harder. Similarly, surrounding a specific model will be harder as all the key support heroes are likely to be bubble wrapped. To make matters worse, your usual savage orruk is just about the worst target for a tree-revenant attack. Tree-revenants have reasonably good offense and are at their best in picking off support units and support heroes that have relatively light defense and high points per wound. Savage orruks on the other hand have among the lowest points per wound in the game and what little defense they have is mostly represented by warpaint, which is effective against Tree-revs' rend. Their offense tends to be high volume attacks rather than low volume, high impact. Tree-revs have garbage defense, so they fare better against low volume, high quality attacks. Low volume attacks are more subject to variance, so if you get lucky your Tree-revs can survive even a powerful attack. High volume attacks, on the other hand, are less likely to experience a lot of variance. Wounds will get through and you will get wiped out. 

I think there are two options you should consider. One is to drop the second Branchwych and replace it with a Dark Elf Sorceress (instead of a Skink Starpriest) which has a similar (but slightly worse) spell to the Starpriest but only costs 80 points. This 20 points saved plus the 100 points from the Tree-revs will allow you to bulk your second dryad unit up to 20, which will help your model count and boost the effectiveness of 10 of your existing models.

Another option is to straight up replace the second unit of Tree-revs with Tree-kin (see the Wood Elves Compendium, yes they have the Sylvaneth keyword). Tree-kin are very efficient, cost exactly 100 points per unit and are at their best against low armor opponents. They absorb punishment well.

7 hours ago, Ganymede said:

 I've replaced the Loremaster with another Branchwych.  Both of them will carry Ranu's.  I did some research and it seems you are allowed two of the same artefact.  I'm thinking I give both Verdant blessing.  Since I will definitely have first turn if I want it thanks to the whole army being in one battalion, I should be close to guaranteed two casts of blessing right off the bat,

I'm not sure if you intend this exactly, but remember the rules of one. You can only attempt any given spell once per turn, so you won't be able to cast Verdant Blessing twice right off the bat. Personally, I'd probably drop one entirely (see above) and give the other one the Acorn. If you take both though I'd give one the Acorn and the other Ranu's and maybe Dwellers Below (since you are concerned about hordes).

One final option to consider is to drop the second wych (or the second tree-revs) and a unit of Kurnoth Hunters and take Drycha with squirmlings. Drycha is great against low armored opponents, is nice and fast, and squirmlings are a fantastic horde buster. 

[Ganymede]

Thank you everybody!  The game went way better than expected.  I had NO idea how strong the wyldwoods combined with magic actually were.  I did wind up taking acorn and a different spell due to rule of one.

My opponent conceded in turn 3.  I rolled really well for rousing and him being basically forced to charge through woods decimated his forces.  Hunters with greatwords annihilated a unit of moarboys.  Treelord was essentially invincible on an objective.  Revenants killed off many of his archers and drew their fire.

To be fair we did roll taken hold, I think it was, so I just holed up my treelord on my objective, but it wasn't even close.

It was overwhelmingly good against his particular list.

[Mirage8112]

On 5/9/2017 at 4:19 PM, swarmofseals said:

As to the debate over tree-revs,  @Mirage8112 describes the unit well. They are pretty bad on paper (very points inefficient in both offense and especially defense), but they have a lot of flexibility and can pull off some nice tricks. Correct me if I'm wrong, Mirage, but you seem like a player that has a very clear plan on how you want the game to play out. I think you probably use tree-revs well because you have a realistic idea of what they can do and integrate their use into a detailed blueprint of how you want the first couple of turns to go. If a player doesn't think like this, they may not get as much about tree-revs. 

@swarmofseals I thought about opening another thread on this, but truthfully, since this thread is about list construction, this as good place as any to talk about what goes into building a solid list. 

The way I see it, there are three reasons to field a unit on tabletop. First is raw damage output. Second is survivability. Third is utility. I've talked a lot about utility in the other threads, but I really can't harp enough on how important it is to consider a unit's utility when trying to decide if it warrants a spot in your lists; games are not won soley on how many models you can take off the table per turn. There is no unit in the game with as much flexibility as T-rev. Full stop.

There are plenty of units in the game that are incredibly killy: skyfires, stonehorns, stormfiends are among the units that can seriously hurt a unit of hunters. Traditionally we've relied on Gnarlroot + healing to restore lost hunter models so they can basically absorb fire and shrug it off. But as the game continues to develop and we see increased threat variations, not to mention more armies getting access to pretty good magic defense, I'm not entirely comfortable relying on Gnarlroot healing to keep hunters alive anymore.  

Hunters, Treelord ancients and Dryads are the backbone of a good Sylvaneth list. Just about every viable tournament build you see will have some combination of at least 2 of those units. But in keeping with that analogy, bones either break what they hit, or they break themselves. Hunters either win combat or they do not. They aren't meant to be flexible in any particular way. Sturdy? Yes. But not really flexible.

Rather than pack more "bones" into the army, I think it makes more sense to build a list with some expendable units, or until that contribute without being directly involved in the bulk of the fighting. I would much rather sacrifice a unit of T-rev's to a unit that's set to do 10-15 wounds than try and put a unit of hunters into it. Likewise, if there's a good possibility a warpfire thrower is about to pop up near a unit of dryads bunkered in the forest, it makes sense to teleport a unit of revenants 6" out from the dryads edge. That way they have to take d6 wounds if they want to get close enough to shoot anything worthwhile, or they can pop up out of range and waste a shot on the Revenants. 

That last example is particularly illustrative. Because in this case, you effectively prevented the enemy from sniping your warlord without sacrificing anything that didn't mind losing. Sometimes, the units you sacrifice end up being the most useful units in that particular game. 

While the saying goes that "no battleplan survives contact with the enemy", I do often have a series of opening moves that are very particular and carefully considered. This comes from my days of WHFB, where I could usually tell who was going to win the game based on deployment alone. The first turn is usually the only part of the game that you can plan for, and often I'll outline a series of moves that put me in the best position to start turn 2. From there I rely on unit roles to determine whose best to handle what. 

It makes sense to use everything in the codex to it's fullest advantage. I've found T-rev's to be very very effective for what they do. Try to use them as a bludgeon and you'll likely accomplish nothing with them. Use them as chaff, a scalpel, for area denial, or for objective hunting you'll come to fall in love with them very fast. Which is a good thing, since they are required for a number of battalions and come in handy if you need to make battleline and points are tight. 

In fact, when I started playing sylvaneth, I usually ran 2 x 20 dryads and 1 x 5 T-rev's. Now I've found that 1 x 20 and 2 x 5 revenants are enough to handle just about anything and it gives me an extra 120 points to play with in the list (which is also the reason I often take a Treelord; 5 T-rev's instead of 20 Drayds means I have the extra points to spare.)
 

[Aezeal]

4 hours ago, Mirage8112 said:

It makes sense to use everything in the codex to it's fullest advantage. I've found T-rev's to be very very effective for what they do. Try to use them as a bludgeon and you'll likely accomplish nothing with them. Use them as chaff, a scalpel, for area denial, or for objective hunting you'll come to fall in love with them very fast. Which is a good thing, since they are required for a number of battalions and come in handy if you need to make battleline and points are tight. 

Well maybe it's my opponents but they do not get a chance to do what they should do.  My chaos opponent just doesn't bring simpel 5 wound heros anymore. My other opponents (dark elves, high elves and goblins) usually leave hero's and artillery in the middle of a unit of 10 or 20  rnf models that defend the backfield objective. Not much for my 5 revenants to target then and they usually die at first contact or before (I've had reavers shoot them easily in the backfield scoring another easy 100 points and then run away, I've had mages blasting them with magic arrows etc) their lack of wounds in comparison to dryads are a real weakness in my opinion, way worse than their damage output which is acceptable. 

I personally often prefer enemies to get engaged with my units so they are sort of stuck and my other units can manoeuvre around them. 

All in all I think they should really be priced lower or get like 2 wounds each and a slight price increase.

[Mirage8112]

10 hours ago, Aezeal said:

Well maybe it's my opponents but they do not get a chance to do what they should do.  My chaos opponent just doesn't bring simpel 5 wound heros anymore. My other opponents (dark elves, high elves and goblins) usually leave hero's and artillery in the middle of a unit of 10 or 20  rnf models that defend the backfield objective. Not much for my 5 revenants to target then and they usually die at first contact or before (I've had reavers shoot them easily in the backfield scoring another easy 100 points and then run away, I've had mages blasting them with magic arrows etc) their lack of wounds in comparison to dryads are a real weakness in my opinion, way worse than their damage output which is acceptable. 

Based on everything you just described; you're doing it wrong. They aren't the best choice for killing 5 wound characters anyway (I generally leave that to ranged attacks either through magic or shooting). As I said, chaff, area denial, objective hunting and precision wound removal. I can count on a unit of T-rev's, generally, to put out 3-4 wounds per turn. If I can't kill what I want to kill in a single turn I won't send the revenants in until I've softened the target up first. Sending 5 T-rev's against "10 or 20 ref models" plus a hero plus artillery is stupid. They aren't build for that.

Likewise, why are they getting shot? They are the most mobile units in the game, there no reason why you should leave them in a position to eat a turn of ranged fire. If you absolutely have to have them up mid field where they can be targets of ranged fire you need to send something with them to threaten a counter charge (Hunters or A treelord work aces) thats ay if they want to come up and take a shot at the T-rev's you can wipe them out next turn. Trading 1 x 5 man squad of T-rev's for a 5 or 10 man squad of reavers is, in my opinion, a very good trade for you and an excellent use of T-rev's. You sacrifice the unit to bait out something you want to kill. Plays like that win games. 
 

10 hours ago, Aezeal said:

All in all I think they should really be priced lower or get like 2 wounds each and a slight price increase.

I'd never argue against a price reduction if the designers saw fit to do so. But for my experience 100pts per 5 is a fair price if you use them as intended. The more you tell me about your tactics with them, the more I'm convinced you're having a hard time with them because you're trying to use them as a hammer, which they are not. T-Rev's are not there to take enemy models off the table. They are there to manipulate the flow of the game to your advantage by interfering with charges, by exercising board control, by controlling/denying objectives for a couple of turns, and occasionally they might take a model off the board or two. 

I've found very good results with 2 x 5 operating in tandem. In the last tournament I played I could only fit 1 squad of 5 but they performed much much better than my squad of 10 dryads.