Landohammer

She can cast Throne and Hive in the same turn. The only other way to do that is with the Spiritsong Stave which requires a Battalion. A reliable Hive on turn one is absolutely clutch to the overall dreadwood strategy. Many times you can use it twice before your opponent is even in range to dispel it.

Thats an interesting concept and would make Stormcast more appealing to many. But I personally hope that GW focuses elsewhere for unit/subfaction expansion. Stormcast were given 50+ units while many factions have less than 15 yet Stormcast remain one of the least popular armies in my region. I know subfactions and endless spells were introduced to help diversify smaller armies, but I can't help but wonder why they don't just release more units. Thats why I am holding out hope that the crab-claw rumour engine is in fact an Idoneth Deepkin refresh. Lets just hope that its more than just endless spells + terrain like the Tzeentch and Sylvaneth codexes. I'm getting reeeeeeal tired of those.

That looks fine actually! A couple of quick notes tho. -Alarielle can use the command ability since she can shoot. So enjoy that 32 inch double move. -I would merge your Wildwood Rangers into a single unit. Their biggest selling point is their 2 inch range, meaning they can attack in 3 ranks. Also, they are great monster hunters, but note that 10 can't be expected to kill a monster, while 20 can kill 95% of the monsters in the game. Big difference!

What readercolin said ^^^ But yea the most critical part is to make sure you have a Nomad Prince as your general. He will unlock pretty much the entire Wanderer line as battleline. Otherwise you will need to breakout your Eternal guard into three separate units to meet battleline requirements which will eliminate their potential for tanking. So I love using Alarielle, but I don't field her in my Living City army. Her abilities only buff Sylvaneth units and her base is too big to deepstrike. If you want some truly competitive Sylvaneth then consider swapping her out for Drycha or more Kurnoth Hunters. Drycha is can really exploit the Living City command ability. Also don't forget about Wildwood Rangers. They make fantastic deepstrikers!

Sounds great! Yea the pros and cons of Alarielle can be debated for ages. I personally think she shines with dreadwood due to the reliable casting of Hive and the ability to self teleport. But she is also insanely fast if she gets the Hive buff. At top bracket she becomes Movement 19 and +3 to charge, and note her summon occurs at the end of movement. I have had her and her summon charge units 30 inches away on turn 1.

Here is my logic. The outcast battalion is only mandatory if you are fielding Dreadwood without Alarielle. But really any battalion will do. Outcast isn't necessarily the best, its just the cheapest. Forest Folk will work fine for your models. The reason is because you want a multi-caster so you can Thrones + Hive. So you need a battalion to unlock the Spiritsong Stave. However, the extra CP from the battalion is also extremely useful because it allows you bank it for when you fail the 6+ charge on the Hunters. (and you will) Personally, when I field the Outcast Battalion, I prefer to field 3 units of 10. Based on the models you have mentioned, the below lists would be a good starting point. Forest Folk Battalion Branchwraith (stave) Durthu or TLA (Jewel) 30 Dryads 30 Dryads 10 Dryads As many Kurnoth Hunters as you own Note that the success of a Dreadwood list lies in the strength of the units you teleport. So if you don't have Hunters, then you may want to consider another Glade for now.

I think its also important to note that Darkshards are relatively cheap, and are unconditional battleline. Personally I find that screening is one of the most critical tactics in competitive play, and so I am going to be taking cheap screens/objective campers in pretty much every army I ever field. So having a cheep screen that can also put out decent shooting while also filling a battleline slot? Sold!

The only restrictions are that your General must be a Leader and cannot be an Ally. In matched play you do not pick a new general if he dies (GHB pg 55 paragraph 4) So you can totally set up your Lord Arcanum in reserve and it would not impact his generalship in anyway. Picking successor Generals is in the basic rules but its meant for Open play. The GHB specifically removes it for matched play.

I don't disagree with anything you are saying. But I am looking at it from a practical rather than idealistic point of view. Personally, I think that if you are a TK fan, then OBR is probably the closest you will ever have to a re-release of your army. So TK fans on the fence about OBR should just go ahead and jump into OBR. I would hate for people to pass up on a cool army just because they were holding out hope for something that is realistically never going to happen

Here is my logic: If its a pickup game, simply don't use a realm. Some of the realms can destroy an army list if you can't prepare for them. And there is no way to build a list that succeeds in all realms. For example, Fire can make shooting and magic armies insanely powerful, while Shadow can make shooting and magic armies unable to do anything. If you really want to use a realm, but want to be fair, then just default to Life (Ghyran). It is probably one of the most tame realms and unlikely to impact the game in a major way. If its a tournament practice game, use the realms provided by the tournament. Ideally they will provide the specific realm rule, but if they only provide the realm itself then then you should prepare for ANY of that particular realms rules. IE, if its Shadow don't bring a ranged army. I love the concept of realms but IMHO they were not properly balanced for matched play. So you have to be very careful when implementing them.

I was under the impression that OBR were TK reimagined as a GW IP. I thought everyone else assumed the same. The old TK were one of the worst offenders when it comes to generic IP since you cant really copyright egyptian undead. ISo the OBR seemed like a natural progression. I mean there is definitely room for them thematically, but it would be the equivalent of getting a new high elf army after the Lumineth are released.

Yes. You can field Tomb Kings in a Death Allegiance army. And you can field Chaos Dwarfs in a Legions of Azgorh army. Both are perfectly legal and have competent rules. Death Allegiance is a catch-all faction for all Death models without a codex. Azgorh is the Chaos Dwarf faction and has an actual codex, (though its PDF only from what I understand). I would actually recommend you focus on Azgorh since Ossearch Bonereapers are the spiritual successor to Tomb Kings, and so I don't imagine original TK will get any more support, rules updates, or model production runs. They are essentially Legends now. Note that if you plan to play in tournaments, circle bases are a must. If rebasing isn't an option, consider purchasing adapters.

Your welcome! I switch between the two, but about 70% of the time I use Winterleaf. However I did take Dreadwood to the biggest GT of the year in my region and went 3-2, losing twice to pre-nerf Slaanesh. I enjoy Dreadwood because the teleports are so much fun and I usually bring tons of Spites to capitalize on their buff. But Winterleaf lists are a lot more flexible and reliable. Dreadwood lists have to pay the Hive+multi caster tax which can get expensive.

Personally, if you purchased, built and transported 6 full kits then you probably deserve to field them however you want lol. I have been to tournaments where forest placement was either impossible or useless due to terrain and objectives. (Duality of Death, Scorched Earth and Battle for the Pass are notorious) So the 3x small pieces may actually be preferable to asking for permission to nudge terrain. (which I hate doing bc it feels gamey)

I think as long as you stick to the contents of 2 kits (aka 2 big, 2 med, 2 small ) per forest, then you should be fine. So you would be ok fielding 2 big + 1 medium pieces as your starting forest. However this would significantly hamper your later forests, unless you just had loads of forest kits to cherry pick from. But to be honest, this has limited applications. If you need the biggest forests possible, just field 2 full kits (6 pieces) per forest. This is a huge foot print.

We are probably the softest 2019 codex by a large margin, but I don't personally think we are terrible. As with any mid-level army, you have to really practice the army quite a bit to nail it down. It is not an army that you can just pickup and win with similar to Slaanesh, OBR, Tzeentch, etc I have taken Sylvaneth to 7+ tournaments in the last 12 months and have an average of 3-2 with most of my losses being to pre-nerf Slaanesh and Nagash. And I don't consider myself a particularly good player lol. We also have the advantage of being outside of the meta, so many competitive players just don't factor us into their lists. Thats one of the reasons I place Dreadwood Glade so high. It trips up a lot of meta lists. Looks like a fun list. The Heartwood Bows can be powerful and I like that your list is outside of the box. But if you wanted to max out this list's competitiveness then you should consider Winterleaf. You are sacrificing exploding 6s and the ability to fight twice to gives those two bow units rerolls. Exploding 6's on Hunters and Dryads is really good and Durthu being able to fight twice can end games. That is the correct way to play Dreadwood. If you keep your Spiritsong caster out of range of unbinds, then you actually have a pretty good chance of getting the Spiteswarm off first turn. I personally prefer to use Alarielle since she can cast Thone + Hive without the need for an item. She also synnergizes well with the teleport since she can use it on herself as a character. So note that Kurnoth Hunters are the primary choice for teleport since they can get the charge reroll command ability despite being away from characters. So ideally you would have a rerollable 6 inch charge. (hive is +3). And even if you fail that charge, you still have 6 Hunters in your opponents backfield which has value in itself. Extra points if you teleport them in cover, so they have a 3+ rerollable save if they fail their charge. I would NEVER run a list without a Glade. The command trait/artefact freedom does not come anywhere close to matching the buffs of the top glades. If you want to buff your charges outside of Hive then consider Chronomantic Cogs.

Quick bit of advice with start collecting boxes. - Convert the Branchwych to a Branchwraith. Just replace the arms with spare dryads bits and don't glue on the bug. That way you can summon your leftover dryads with the Branchwraith spells. I would rather summon 6 dryads than try to get any use out of the Branchwych spell. -Alternatively you can use your leftover dryad bits (along with any extra 32mm bases you have) to make 4 extra dryads to stretch to 20. -At low points, Harvestboon is a solid glade since it makes Durthu extremely hard to deal with. So consider building your Treelord model as a Durthu. If you can't decide on a Glade, just default to Winterleaf. Its probably our best one and is definitely the easiest to use.

Absolutely. Most lists retain 95% of their functionality without a forest. However they are free to include in your list so I have never seen a Sylvaneth player without one. Additionally, there are some units that lose most of their value without a forest model. Branchwraith and Treelord Ancients come to mind. If money is the concern, then consider cutting the Citadel Wood footprint out of cardboard or paper. But given the $$ cost of some of our main units (Spites and Hunters most notably) the cost of a single forest is relatively minor.

My bad. I managed to miss that part. Yea Dreadwood is very different. Though I can't imagine ever using Sinister Ambush on 10 dryads. 🤣

The Navigate Realmroots rule actually says "instead of making a normal move in your movement phase". We probably still need an FAQ on the matter, but that sentence is a pretty big indication of what the intent was. So most people I know play it as you can't teleport that phase.

Pretty sure the "the summoned unit cannot move in the following movement phase" part of the spell makes summoned Dryads unable to teleport that turn. I agree 100%. We are marketed as a mobile, healing, magically strong army. But all of those traits really only apply to Alarielle herself. The rest of the army is essentially just a slow combat army. In fact, most of the models in my tournament list are movement 5 That is 1 inch faster than a Dwarf lol. I have said it before, but I really think the Living City nailed what Sylvaneth were supposed to be. Self healing, Deepstriking, double moving, resiliency/healing spells and an artefact that makes any hero a wizard.

@Trevelyan Yea I agree our conversation has definitely had some moving goalposts and probably isn't really going anywhere at this point. Probably my fault entirely. I lose track of what I am arguing about sometimes. (forums have that affect lol) For the sake of consuming this thread I think we can just agree to disagree on the central point of TLAs being competitive (in any form or number). On a side note. One of the wargamers I follow on Twitter "Grand Allegiance Smorgan" just posted that, in his opinion, Sylvaneth is the least competitive codex in the game. Not sure what to think about that. 😟

So I have been list building with some of my old 8th ed WHF models and I think I found some pretty cool synergy in a strange place. Dwarfs! So some of the Dwarf units have pretty impressive statlines. But they remain mediocre due to their 4 inch movement and lack of access to magic/movement shenanigans. But Living City overcomes those weaknesses. Consider this as a basis for a list. Runelord as your warlord with the Druid command trait and as many Hammerers as you can afford! The Runelord unlocks Hammerers as Battleline. He also has a +2 Unbind. But now he is a wizard that can cast-1 to Wound on the Hammerers. Additionally Hammerers get immunity to Battleshock while they are within 12" of the Runelord. And the runelord can pray on a 2+ to give the Hammerers +1 Rend. Thats a lot of mileage out of a 90pt character without an Artefact and without the need for CP. So the runelord and Hammerers deepstrike and declare a charge at +1 (rerollable with your spare CP). Here are some additional units that synnergize well. -Frost Phoenix for a potential -2 to wound -Chronomantic Cogs so your Hammerers get +3 to their charge -Gyrocopters so they can move/shoot/move/drop bombs -Warden King for +1 attack on the Hammerers Just thought I would share!

Here are the top 5 tricks to doing well in competitive play 1) Screen 2) Screen 3) Screen 4) Build your army around the scenarios you expect to play 5) Screen Combat can be particularly brutal in AOS. There are units and armies that can wipe out your primary units before they even get to swing and in many cases they can reach you as early as turn 1. Screening is the easiest and most reliable method of preventing that. Its a simple but powerful concept, because it essentially takes away their priority. Now they won't be able to determine when they get into combat, and have to rely on scoring the double turn or eliminating your screen via other phases. This is partly why the Inspiring Presence command ability is so powerful. Because what if they fail to kill your screen unit? Even just 1-2 surviving models of a decimated unit can then stick around and tie up your opponent's model's for another turn. You've essentially turned your cheap crappy unit into a weapon. But screening also works with single model units. For example, dropping a 70pt Gyrocopter right in front of their 30 Witch Elves. Now your opponent has to choose between going around the Gyrocopter and wasting valuable movement, or wasting a turn killing it. This is a popular trick with Endless Spells. Finally make sure you read up on the GHB and BRB scenarios. Some of them are pretty wacky and many experienced players have done poorly because they ended up playing a scenario they weren't prepared for.

Nice! I actually find Gyrocopters to be great but better in single units. If you are going to take Black Guard I would recommend you go ahead and bump it up to 30. They have 2" range and can really capitalize on larger units. A unit of 30 near the Sorceress is quite terrifying since that will be 61 attacks hitting on 2's.