Trevelyan

It’s ok. You can certainly play it, and it has most of the basic units for the faction covered. I would drop the Knight Incantor in favour of something in-faction. I doubt you would want to use him much in future. The six Kurnoth Hunters should have scythes rather than swords. I won’t go into the details, but essentially you take scythes for large blobs and swords for the minimum unit. We’ve had some discussion recently on the merits of Durthu. He still works well in Winterleaf and looks great on the table, but you could consider a TLA instead. Not essential, but if you are looking at future lists then it is viable. Alternatively, if you’re not getting a Start Collecting set with a Treelord in it, you might want to pick up Drycha instead. You’ll need to consider what unit you expect Alarielle to summon. Top picks are either three hunters (swords) or 20 Dryads. Either choice will add to your total model count. On a similar note, don’t forget to pick up at least two Wyldwoods, ideally three or four. Sylvaneth is not a cheap faction!

ToV isn’t essential on Alarielle, but it is her default choice. If you are short of casters then I tend to seen Regrowth and/or Verdurous Harmony as priorities. But Regrowth is a good pick for Drycha (she’s a tad squishy) and VH is tricky to cast reliably without some sort of artefact buff (the Gem being the most obvious). Once you’ve got the other spells covered then ToV is a good pick for Alarielle. She has three casts per turn but no inherent casting buff to support them. ToV is an easy cast that buffs the next two spells and presents opposing casters with an unbinding dilemma - do they unbind ToV but risk you casting bigger spells, or let you cast ToV but make further spells harder to unbind? As an added bonus, Alarielle’s Metamorphosis spells improves with your casting result, so ToV directly buffs that. Taking ToV doesn’t make Alarielle a backline caster. She can cast it as her first spell each turn then cast two more spells after that (and less spells, Metamorphosis or summoning a new Wyldwood are all good options). She loses the buff when she moves but can recast ToV from wherever she is next turn. It’s far better than a single cast wizard spending a turn to power up but being forced to stand still until next turn to benefit.

Drop the smaller unit of hunters. If you really need 3 Sword hunters then Alarielle can summon them, but you’ll probably only need the 6 Scythes. You can only teleport one unit of hunters per turn through Wyldwoods, so unless you are planning to take Dreadwood and use command points on a secondary unit of hunters (or tertiary if Alarielle summons more somewhere useful) then they’ll never see action. You can spend the 200 points on a range of alternatives. You absolutely don’t want the Outcast battalion unless you’ve got an extra hero. Depending on how you spend your points from the hunters, you might want to just buy the command point for 50 and put the other 50 points towards something else instead. Having an extra artefact is nice in theory, but what are you actually planning to give the Branchwraith? Spiritsong Stave is a popular choice, but works best if you give her Throne of Vines as a spell. In which case Alarielle won’t be able to use it and you’ll be undercutting your best caster. You should give more thought to specific spells and artefacts before deciding whether you want an artefact or would benefit more from another caster. On which note, if you want to go caster heavy, have you considered Gnarlroot rather than Winterleaf or Dreadwood? The Gnarlroot Chalice of Nectar is very effective on a Branchwraith to boost her casting without needing to worry about an extra battalion artefact.

Alternatively, the TLA is a solid support caster with a range of useful abilities that work best right behind the front line, and enough durability to stand there and make use of them. A TLA isn’t a heavy hitter (although it hits heavily enough for a second line caster), but it is very far from just being a 300 point Wyldwood dispenser.

Honestly, I wouldn’t play that list given the choice. You’ve already touched on the reasons why yourself, but the essential problem is you’ve got too many heroes and not enough workers. I’ll be repeating that a lot. The reason Alarielle, Drycha and Durthu keep dying is that a) you’ve got all three of the most expensive single units in the faction in one list; and b) you’ve not got remotely enough other models to support them properly. You really need to drop at least one of them and find a better way to spend the points. Your second point is really the same as your first, but the problem isn’t so much that you don’t have enough battleline to cover your heroes, but rather that you’ve got too many heroes for your battleline. 30 Dryads plus 2x5 Tree Revenants is perfectly adequate in most lists. Maybe not optimal, but the battleline isn’t the problem. Likewise, you are struggling to be offensive and generate advantage on the table because you’ve got too many heroes and not enough other models to support them. In theory you’ve got things that can apply pressure - Alarielle is superb at opening up a new front by flying a long way and summoning new troops. You’ve got the Hive so she could be goofing it the best part of two foot across the table before she summons whatever she summons. That’s how you apply pressure. The most striking think about your list is what you don’t have. We’ve all just been talking about how good Kurnoth Hunters are but you don’t have any. And getting Alarielle to drop three won’t be enough. Kurnoth Hunters are the real workhorses of the faction. They hit harder than anything else for the points, and they can take a hit vastly better. You’re also missing a Branchwraith. While I’m sure there are viable lists without one somewhere, I’ve never seen anyone suggest that paying 80 points for a wizard that can summon a 100 point unit each turn was a bad idea. But if you have to play that list then bunker down behind your Dryads and don’t spread out. Keep Alarielle safe until you’ve got an opening for her (that may be Turn 1, and should be by Turn 2) and use her summons to screen her from threats. She has a huge base but isn’t really a huge threat by herself. Similarly, don’t get over excited and run Drycha into combat. She hits hard but melts like ice cream under pressure, so let her take things down at range until it is safe to commit. Then go and get at least six Kurnoth Hunters and a Branchwraith.

Sylvaneth players remember the many times Durthu let us down, or was just generically uninspiring. Our opponents remember the few times Durthu single handedly wrecked face. I’m also in Camp Kurnoth when it comes to actual damage (6 scythes). Most of my local community has a strange attitude - they say that they fear the Kurnoths, but they’ll still happily feed them all the units they can eat. Last night I had Gotrek on my right flank, Durthu in the centre and the Kurnoths to my left. Gotrek got tied up by a unit of Boargruntas, Durthu got to finish off a Mawkrusha (which failed to charge past the Dryad wall so got stuck munching chaff In a forest while Durthu powered up and killed it) and a horde of Orruks lined up on my left to sacrifice themselves to the god of the hunt. The Kurnoths did more damage than the rest of my army combined, and singlehandedly swung the game as a double turn of Kurnoths (Winterleaf, with the Kernel and an Arch Rev in support) didn’t leave much left for him to fight with. Complete tangent, but Gotrek really is as tough as advertised. We had time to kill after the slaughter so decided to put Gotrek against the Mawkrusha. Mawkrusha got to charge and unleash its attack first. Gotrek killed it with his second set of attacks at the end of the combat phase with plenty of damage to spare. He took three wounds total.

It may already have come up, but why have you gone Gnarlroot rather than Winterleaf? Is it just for the Chalice?

Has anyone had any experience with Ironjaws since the new Orruk battletome came out? I’ve got a game on Wednesday and while I’ve faced them before I’m wary of making too many assumptions based on obsolete experience. How are they playing these days, and is there anything we need to be aware of beside the obvious preparations against being charged (bubble wrap the heavy hitters and prepare to sacrifice Dryads by the dozen)? Would this be a good opportunity to debut Gotrek Gurnisson? (Full disclosure - I’ll be playing him anyway because I just finished painting him and I’m not going to let him wallow on a shelf).

Ah the “how many Wyldwoods?” question. It must be Friday. You’ll want at least two, but realistically three or four. More than that could occasionally be useful but start with two or three and see how you go from there.

I suspect it’s less a deliberate decision and more an unfortunate consequence of the way that most factions work in PtG. There are only a few that have a dedicated Heroic Followers table, and there are several other factions that also suffer from the lack of one. For the most part, GW just lumped the leaders together in one table and didn’t think through the consequences for each faction - it’s a generic approach which works better for some factions than others. That doesn’t mean you can’t play Sylvaneth at all in PtG, though. Just that you won’t really get a full flavour of the faction that way. A list with Durthu and a load of Hunters light work reasonably well, for example, but it won’t play the same way as having those units with the usual support. Like trying to decide whether you like Neapolitan ice cream by just tasting the vanilla. Wanderers don’t really help with a Sylvaneth PtG list. And there is no reason to move away from Sylvaneth after you lose the PtG restrictions.

You can take a Branchwraith, Branchwych or Arch Revenant as your champion if you prefer. But you can only ever have one Champion - unlike some other factions, Sylvaneth doesn’t put cheaper heroes into a “Heroic Followers” table. So Durthu, TLA, Branchwraith, Branchwych and Arch Revenant are all mutually exclusive. The Branchwraith would be the best way to get a “complete” Sylvaneth experience - she at least allows all of the options in theory. But in practice, as a faction, we tend to rely on having a couple of casters about so any PtG experience which limits us to a single caster is going to give a very different feel to the faction.

The Path to Glory options in the Sylvaneth book are bad. There is no way to get an additional model from the Champion table, so you inevitably miss out on a lot of what makes the faction work in real game. If you pick Durthu then there is no way to get a spell caster in your army. That means no summoning additional Wyldwoods, no summoning extra Dryads and no casting any of our excellent other spells. Durthu really needs Wyldwoods to perform at his best, and the whole faction relies on them for assorted movement and other buffs. So a Durthu Champion in a PtG game carries a lot of hidden penalties. Taking a TLA gives you a single wizard, plus allows you to auto-summon one Wyldwood. That is a huge benefit for the rest of your army. You still won’t get to summon Dryads (requires a Branchwraith) but you’ll get to see more of the faction and won’t lose out on as many Wyldwood-dependant buffs. On that basis, the TLA is probably the better choice of the two. But I would really not recommend PtG as an introduction to Sylvaneth as you’ll lose out either way. TLA or Durthu isn’t a question of which is good, but only which is least bad.

She’s not an auto include, but I find she still has a lot of value in the right lists. Rapid movement before summoning a unit (Dryads or hunters as necessary) allows us to open up a new front in a way that isn’t as easy as it used to be given the changes to Wyldwoods (original placement and summoning restrictions). Throne of Vines is always a solid pick if you have your basic healing spells covered elsewhere. Regrowth is a good second choice if you are worried about her own health Or Throne is on a Branchwraith. One of those each turn plus Metamorphosis and either summoning a Wyldwood (in an opportune spot after a long move the previous turn) or an endless spell gives her plenty of casting value. On top of all that, she benefits from Glades as well as any other unit. Winterleaf double hits or Gnarlroot rerolls both make her hit harder than before.

It’s largely like this: Allegiance: Sylvaneth - Glade: Gnarlroot Treelord Ancient (300) - General - Command Trait : Nurtured by Magic - Artefact : The Vesperal Gem - Deepwood Spell : Verdurous Harmony Treelord Ancient - Artefact : Chalice of Nectar - Deepwood Spell : Regrowth Branchwraith (80) - Artefact : Spiritsong Stave - Deepwood Spell : Throne of Vines Arch-Revenant (100) 5 x Spite-Revenants (60) 5 x Spite-Revenants (60) 5 x Spite-Revenants (60) 6 x Kurnoth Hunters (400) - Scythes 3 x Kurnoth Hunters (200) - Greatswords Treelord (200) Lords of the Clan (60) Outcasts (100) Gladewyrm (30) Spiteswarm Hive (50) That comes to an even 2000 points. Variations to consider include swapping the sword hunters for bow hunters and/or swapping the Arch Rev for a second Branchwraith to tinker with the spell selection - an extra 20 points there allows you you swap the Gladewurm for an Emerald Lifeswarm to really layer on the ridiculous healing. It’s not really competitive - not enough bodies to contest objectives - but it feels like a real caster list. You dont put out the same volume of spells as the old Gnarlroot, but it’s a lucky opponent that manages to unbind any of them.

I’ve run that exact list with an arch-revenant added (plus Outcasts and some endless spells, which I assume you also have). It’s is ok, but I’m always in two minds about the bow rangers - do they add a meaningful amount of ranged damage in a list that already has Drycha and a refilling TLA, or are they really there just to mop up targets that the others don’t quite kill? The other Gnarlroot list I like to run is similar but drops a unit of Hunters (sometimes swords, sometimes bows) and Drycha in favour of a Treelord, a second TLA and Lords of the Clan. That lets me take the Chalice and the Vesperal Gem on the TLAs and still give a Spiritsong Stave to the Branchwraith to double up on Throne of Vines and summoning. It’s a lot less punchy than other Sylvaneth lists, but insanely durable. It holds objectives better than anything.

Basic Seeker Chariots aren’t that scary. Once you account for the cost per model and the difficulties in getting multiple fat bases into your battleline, they are remarkably ineffective. A couple of mortal wounds on the charge (granted they can charge every turn) and around four saves at 0 or -1 rend for 1 damage each is far from the worst thing a battleline will face. Exalted Chariots are obviously nastier, But also more expensive and only ride solo. They still don’t really do more to a battleline than you would expect from a 180 point unit and getting more than one into the same unit is difficult on most tables. In either case you will lose some battleline troops but the chariots will be punching below their weight and then be exposed to counter attack from whatever the battleline is screening. That seems perfectly acceptable. To paraphrase myself from earlier, the aim of the game isn’t to keep your battleline alive - Dryads should die so Hunters don’t have to. To be honest, only one guy locally I've seen with any chariots at all, and he wasn’t stomping the opposition with them. Between terrain blocking them, and them inadvertently blocking their own units they just don’t seem to be taken seriously in my meta. Maybe someone has found a way to make them do horrible things that I can’t anticipate, but it hasn’t reached my neck of the woods.

That’s why you bubble wrap your treelords. There are two sources of depravity points, damage done to their heroes, and damage their heroes inflict to your multi-wound models. You can’t prevent the first but can limit the second if you don’t present their heroes with easy access to your bigger models. Stomps are useful for the same reason, they give you a chance to hit their heroes before those heroes hit you. That matters because every Slaanesh hero effectively has a Stomp ability of its own. It’s not so much a choice between their combat and their summoning; the two parts work together. They want their heroes to attack first but they are all rather pillow fisted for their points. Forcing your tougher units to wait until the end of the combat round allows them to mine for depravity with their heroes then finish you off with something stronger. Stomping their hero breaks that chain - dying to a unit of Fiends isn’t great, but it beats getting slapped for depravity and then dying to the Fiends. You still don’t want too many Treelords, but Durthu is viable (Harvestboon Durthu with the Doppleganger Cloak is something they don’t have a ready answer for) and taking a TLA isn’t the worst option as long as you don’t leave them exposed. Kurnoths are necessary for the killing but easy prey for Depravity so scythe hunters fighting over a Dryad shield wall are the best bet.

I wouldn’t normally run her at 1000 points, but if I did then I’d be strongly inclined to go with a Branchwraith, and an Arch Revenant then take either 10 Dryads and 5 Spites for an even 1000 points, or 2x5 Spites and an endless spell. Play that as Winterleaf with Archie as general and holding the Kernel, summon Sword Hunters and let Archie buff them and/or Alarielle herself while the Branchwraith summons spare Dryads. It’s a lot of punch for low points.

You can run her with Durthu or Drycha easily enough. Either one brings her to around 1000 points so you’ve still got plenty of points left. The remaining 1000 could get you two units of Kurnoth Hunters (400) an extra couple of heroes (Branchwraiths or Arch Revs 160-200) and still have at least 400 points for your battleline and endless spells. Remember that Alarielle can summon extra models if you feel you still have gaps - 20 extra dryads? Another unit of Kurnoths? A stompy Treelord? - all available as necessary and in response to circumstances.

We are better placed than most armies against Slaanesh. Stomp on our Treelord variants helps to balance out the Slaanesh combat order shenanigans, our Kurnoths are durable enough to take a pounding if necessary (with Verdurous Harmony to recover from losses) and we’ve got enough potential ranged damage to take out bigger threats early (watch out for larger units of Fiends). We’ve even got our own summoning options to help in the numbers game. Take out the Slaanesh heroes as a priority and make sure that they have to chew through your single wound battleline infantry while you get to retaliate with your heavy hitters. Take some stomps and focus on their nastier units so you don’t mind attacking at the end of combat on your own turn. And make sure that you’ve understood the end of turn order sequence - on your own turn, you get to attack with all of your end-of-turn units before they get to attack with any of theirs. You only alternate units during the normal combat phase.

I regularly run 6 scythes one most lists, but I think I would struggle to get value out of 9. 6 seems like the sweet spot for actually getting them all into range. There might be occasions where I can get 7 into combat, and even rarer occasions where the table is clear enough to get more, but I suspect that most of the time I’d be paying a lot of points for reserve Hunters to keep the unit alive, rather than actually contribute damage. That *might* be worthwhile (units of 6 hunters can still die to credible threats), so if you do go for the 9 blob then I’d be interested to hear how it goes. I’ve got an unassembled box of hunters on the shelf and I haven’t decided how to build them yet.

I certainly used to be, and I still sometimes have to overcome the instinct to want to keep my little plastic men safe. Once I realised the value of not only letting them die, but deliberately sacrificing them (so they died on my terms) my results got a lot better. I find it helps to accept that many/most units are going to die anyway, the other player will see to that. So start by assuming that at least one unit will die each turn and look at ways to determine what it will be and how it can achieve the most for you before it dies. That’s not to say that you should throw units away for nothing. But a unit that scores a VP then dies has done more for you than a unit that survives the game without ever scoring. With Durthu, if you can take down a couple of big hitters from the enemy side before dying, that’s usually job done.

The aim of the game is not to keep Durthu alive. If he can take out more than his value in enemy units, and ideally leave the unit which eventually kills him exposed to a counter attack, then he has still done his job. Winterleaf greatly increases your chances of having Durthu inflict significant damage to anything, which is really why you have him in the list to begin with. It is nice if he does live, of course, and he may succeed in killing everything that threatens him, but it isn’t something that you should restrict your lists to ensure. If it matters, you can always screen him with cheap infantry units to limit the number of attacks he faces, and/or consider healing spells to keep him alive over successive rounds More successful players are those who aren’t afraid to sacrifice units, even expensive units, to secure a win. I recounted a game a few pages back where I won by teleporting Drycha onto an enemy objective at the back of his deployment zone. She scored 3vps and forced him to divert his largest unit of Crypt Flayers to retake the objective. He later explained that he didn’t anticipate that move because it was certain death for Drycha. My observation was that it was also a certain win for me - if he didn’t divert the Flayers I would have held the objective for another turn, and because he did I was able to hold other objectives for longer instead. Under those circumstances why did it matter that Drycha would clearly die to his counter attack?

You’ve just said that the sword hunters were overkill anyway. The mortal wounds are nice, but really only balances for the fact that you’ll almost always have fewer Hunters in range than of you had taken the Scythes. Having an extra Kurnoth Hunter in range makes up for not getting a mortal on a 6 to wound, especially once you start piling on the buffs from the Arch Rev and/or Frozen Kernel. Having two extra hunters in range for those situations where your opponent doesn’t allow you to surround a high value model is vastly superior.

How did you get 6 sword hunters into combat with Gotrek? His tabletop base (as distinct from the scenic pillar in the promo photos) is only 32mm. That aside, 6 scythe hunters are just as effective in Winterleaf and have fewer range issues.