Trevelyan

From recent personal experience, 6 Winterleaf scythes with the arch rev giving them an extra attack the turn you use the frozen kernel is enough to destroy anything. Possibly even two lots of anything.

One unit of 6 hunters with scythes backed up by an arch rev hits like a freight train. That and Durthu gives you plenty of punch. You’ve also got Drycha in the list who is squishier than Durthu but still a very credible threat if you feel that you need a third serious combat unit. The other option you might want to consider is swapping Drycha for a Treelord Ancient. The TLA won’t hit as hard, but can guarantee you a forest when you need one, provides an extra stomp and is still a wizard. That frees up another 20 points if you need them. If you dropped the command point then you’ve got enough for the second branchwraith even if you keep the smaller unit of hunters. I would personally recommend having a unit of six hunters over two units of three (and add smaller units thereafter). Units of three on their own are still fairly easy to neutralise, whereas a unit of six can hit back hard enough even if they lose two or three models to an attack that your opponent has to think twice about engaging them. Plus a single large unit is easier to buff than two smaller units.

Your second list only seems to come to 1880 points rather than 1980 as you suggest .That would allow another caster and another endless spell. From recent personal experience, 6x Scythe hunters with the ArchRev buff are beyond brutal, so I would be inclined to go with the second list. Especially if you do have points to spare. Forest folk is very expensive for what you seem to be getting here. You’re paying 440 points for a few min units of Dryads and the artefact/command point bonus. If you just want the artefact/command point then Outcasts is a lot cheaper. But if you really want to run with the Dryads then I would be inclined to drop the smaller Hunter unit and make either one 30 block of Dryads or two 20 blocks. If you went 30/10/10 on Dryads instead of the smaller Hunters, and if I’m right about the 1880 total points, then you have an extra 150 points to play with that’s a second branchwraith and two more endless spells. You don’t mention which Glade you are using. Do you have an idea, and how will that factor into your strategy?

First I’ve heard of it. What makes you think that?

Plus, as I mentioned a few posts ago, the GW product description explicitly stats that the skull is a 1 and the Sylvaneth icon is a 6.

Spites significantly out-damage Dryads, point for point, while Dryads are more robust. With a few edge case caveats, you take Spites for offence and Dryads for defence.

That’s certainly one way to solve it. The other would be to be to look at the product description on the GW website which states: “This set inlcudes [sic] 20 brown dice divided into four sets of five that each feature pips with one of the colours of the seasons - and special stylings on every face, including skulls for the 1s, and Sylvaneth icons for the 6s.”

I used the dice for the first time last night. In the space of a single game I went from struggling to read them quickly to easily assessing them at a glance. My opponent felt exactly the same - he went from resenting my “gimmick” dice to reading them quickly. They might look odd, but they really aren’t hard to read once you get started.

That looks about right to give you options. Note that Dryads come in boxes of 16, so the option there are 16, 32, 48, etc. Get a couple of Start collecting boxes and you’ll have 32 Dryads, a Treelord Ancient, a Spirit of a Durthu and more branchwyches than you need. That’s probably the best way to start. And 32 Dryads allows you to make three Branch nymphs (unit leaders) for maximum WYSIWYG flexibility. A third Start collecting would give you a standard Treelord and more Dryads. I’ve got 20 tree revenants and have only once put them all on the table. I’ve got 30 Spite Revenants and am not convinced it’s enough with the new book. (Strictly speaking 22 and 33 for WYSIWYG).

You’re doing it wrong. The Dryads are supposed to kill the other guy. 😛

You need all the trees. All. Of. Them. Why else would you play Sylvaneth? In practice probably only three or four Wyldwoods in total. One you place as faction terrain and the others you may want to summon. The summoning is entirely up to you - if you don’t want the woods then just don’t summon them. Dreadwood isn’t as dependent on Wyldwoods for movement as other glades, but they are still useful, and the Vengeful Skullroot (essential for gubbins) really likes to have them around.

If you really wanted to go Magic heavy then you could play Gnarlroot with Alarielle, a Lord of the Clans battalion and an Outcasts battalion, and still have room for a branchwraith and a few endless spells. That would allow you to combine the Gnarlroot Chalice of Nectar with the Vesperal Gem and the Spiritsong Staff, giving you seven attempts to cast. Give Alarielle the Throne of Vines and between that, the Gem and the Chalice you should get a few spells out each turn even against another casting faction (other than Tzeentch, obviously). It wouldn’t be particularly competitive, but could be valid in a friendly game. Plus it has the benefit of clocking in at only 20 models (plus wyldwoods, Alarielle summons, Dryads summons and endless spells) and four drops.

Gnarlroot glade gives you the Chalice of Nectar, which allows you to roll 3d6 and keep two (presumably the highest two) when casting spells. That’s the obvious choice, but there are other useful artefacts in the book (such as the Vesperal Gem that allows you to automatically cast a spell from the deepwood lore). Sylvaneth has never lacked for casters. Alarielle can cast three spells per turn. Taking Throne of Vines as her first spell to give +2 to casting rolls on the next two is a popular choice. Blessings of the Forest (-1 to hit the Dryads) now only applies if the unit is wholly within 6” (previously just within 3”) of a wyldwood. So dryad conga lines don’t work. But if the unit is wholly with 6” of the wyldwood it is marginally tougher than before as it only needs 10 models to gain +1 to save (previously 12).

I missed the branchwych in the list. She would do as an extra caster, but then why not give her one of the healing spells? I think you are selling the deep wood lore short. You’ve got Durthu as a heavy hitter and multiple small units of sword hunters (IMO you’d have been better building the nine melee hunters you have as six scythes and three swords rather than nine swords). Durthu’s damage output drops when he starts taking wounds, and small units of hunters are easy pickings for other heavy infantry - you could easily lose two from a given unit to a half credible offence and a lone sword hunter Is a sad mini. I would recommend that you reconsider the benefits of keeping Durthu properly healthy and being able to respawn hunters with some reliability. If you don’t go for Gnarlroot then you’ve got the makings of a reasonable Heartwood list with all of those hunters, or you could consider Harvestboon to help Durthu survive/avoid retaliation in combat. My prediction for the list you’ve got currently is that you’ll lack the ability to take a punch, and however reliably you can summon Dryads, it won’t make up for the losses you suffer among more significant units.

I would reconsider spell and artefact choices. You don’t mention which model is your general, but you want your general to cast reliably for the extra healing. In that list, the branchwraith has the Chalice so can cast reliably but if you intend her to summon then she will likely be towards the back so might not be able to heal with the command trait. Plus you’ll be torn between summoning and casting Verdurous Harmony, assuming you’ve even got LoS to cast VH in the first place. If your TLA is the general then you need to consider how to boost his spell casting (hint: it starts with Versperal and ends with Gem). Gnarlroot benefits from having casters up front to support heavy hitters with the rerolls. But you’ve only got one front line caster, so you won’t be able to benefit from that trait much either. I’d suggest taking at least one more caster, making the TLA the general and giving him the Vesperal Gem instead of Ghyrstrike on Durthu. Between the TLA general and the new caster, one should have Regrowth and the other Verdurous Harmony. The TLA is guaranteed his cast each turn and both should be comfortable supporting front line units. The Branchwraith can sit back and summon reliably with the Chalice. If you don’t have a suitable additional caster then I would seriously reconsider Gnarlroot as your choice of glade. All you are really getting from it is the stronger summoning on the branchwraith. That’s nice, but there are better glades which would offer you more if you can’t leverage other Gnarlroot benefits.

It is missing in the list but seems to be included in the points. I assume the failure to actually list it is an oversight rather than a genuine omission.

No one has said that the extra rend alone makes up for the MW and the extra attack. The reach is also a significant part of the equation, enabling bigger units to operate with ease (which has further synergy with available buffs) and more flexibility piling in under tanglethorn thickets. Very few people disagree that 3 swords are better in most cases than 3 scythes. But most people also find that 6 scythes are better than 6 swords, because a mini with 4 attacks that can’t get into range of an enemy model doesn’t contribute much. Whether 6 scythes is better than 2x3 swords is about the only point where there isn’t a clear consensus, although there are strong arguments in favour of the scythes there. But if you disagree and think that you can run the swords better then go for it. It’s your list.

1. has been discussed at length in the last few pages. Short version is they you take scythes in units of 6 and swords in units of 3. Longer version is that AoS isn’t a game where you just compare abstract damage calculations to determine a winner, and an extra inch range has both direct and indirect benefits. To put it another way, why do you suppose GW saw fit to buff the swords and not the scythes if the scythes didn’t have significant advantages in play? 2. you’re only looking at a single roll and comparing the benefits of successfully rerolling into 2 damage rather than 1. In practice, the extra attacks from the blade result in a more consistent damage output. The single reroll in the combat phase isn’t really a game changer for the unit anyway, and is probably best kept for a save roll. Plus it’s more convenient to roll more of the same attack as the rest of the unit than to single out the unit leader for discrete rolls in each combat.

Responding to vortex conversation Yes, there are ways to make it work in some lists if you’re taking two wraiths anyway. But as you say, past a certain point there are easier ways to achieve much the same result without spending points on an endless spell.

It doesn’t change that much. Most other spells do require LoS, and while adding 6” to the Wyldwood summon range is nice, wholly within 30” of a model bunkered back in a safe zone (assuming your opponent doesn’t have anything to render that zone less safe) is far less flexible than it sounds. You’re investing a lot of points into that trick for potentially very limited payoff given that any caster more than 6” away from the vortex (i.e. every other caster you’ve got) can cast the same summon in more places. It’s not nothing, but it is a classic case of a trick that is almost certainly far better in theory than in practice and you likely don’t gain enough benefit from the Vortex once the whole engine is running to justify the cost of taking it. If you set aside the whole “wouldn’t it be nice to be sitting in a wyldwood on a Balewind Vortex with Throne of Vines up and consistently summoning new Wyldwoods and Dryads” and think about the practical issues, the cracks start to show. You need a round or two to set it up - Vortex gives you an extra cast, but you still want to cast Throne of Vines and be summoning Dryads as often as possible, plus summon the Vortex itself. What’s the plan to get it all up and running in a timeframe where you really benefit? You might be able to invest in even more support to further increase your casting rate, but that ups the cost considerably.

She could, but again that’s not something I see an opportunity for on a regular basis in competitive games and Azmarus said this is supposed to be a competitive list. Turn 1 or 2, perhaps but after that no one will be reliably summoning trees because they won’t be able to guarantee the space. A competent opponent will block off space. Maybe she can still summon trees in less opportune places, but that’s not a great use of Alarielle plus Throne either.

Honestly, I think it has problems. Your spending 100 points to give the Branchwraith the Vesperal Gem. But the gem doesn’t help her native summoning. So either you plan to take her just as a healbot, in which case you’re missing out on standard Branchwraith summoning, or you hope to mix and match summoning and healing, which isn’t a great idea. You could easily drop the small unit of hunters (Alarielle can summon them in herself) and the battalion for an arch revenant, another caster and some more battleline units. Im also not convinced you’re really getting mileage from Alarielle’s casting. She casts Throne, her own spell and you’ve got one endless spell. If no one dispels the endless spell then by the next turn she doesn’t have anything significant to cast. Having Alarielle cast Throne to buff a shield seems redundant.

Just so I understand, are you planning to bring nine units, each of 5x Spite Revenants, arranges into three separate Outcast battalions? That’s a lot of very squishy eggs in one basket. In theory you might add 4d3 models to the total lost from a failed battle shock test, but it would require that you have one unit of five spites from each battalion in combat range. They all need to survive the combat and the enemy needs to both take and fail the test (plenty of armies have high bravery on tough units). sounds like a lot of things that all need to go right. Not least being that your opponent needs to not see it coming and just spend a command point to dodge the test (or be one of many factions with the ability to negate battleshock tests).

Out of curiosity, what did you think the Ironbark abilities were? The command ability only works when charged, so no obvious synergy with our own charge boosters. My problem with Ironbark is that it is almost entirely defensive/reactive. It’s consistently designed for what it does, but to my mind what it does is sit back and wait for the game to come to you. That seems like a losing strategy. I’d argue that Gnarlroot is a better defensive glade (using enhanced spells to increase durability) while still providing offensive options. Ironbark essentially wants to do something that Sylvaneth isn’t very good at and that has no real appeal, to me at least.

Given that this is a stated goal, I’m surprised you are only using a unit of 3 hunters. Taking 6 hunters would give you twice the benefit (12 extra attack rather than 6) for the same cost in command points.