Landohammer

Welcome! This is a fairly common question in this thread so there are already a lot of good answers. In short: You definitely need at least two. The wood to wood teleport is the main reason for summoning woods, so if you don't have two then you are missing out on one of our strongest allegiance abilities. Three is probably a good goal. If your table is properly terrained then summoning more than 3 can become pretty difficult. Note that the old Citadel Wood models are generally cheaper and easier to transport than the newer Awakened Wildwoods. I would recommend 1 new kit +2 old kits.

Chalice of Nectar on a TLA is potent, I agree. But you are sacrificing access to Winterleaf and Dreadwood to get your potent TLA. I think the cost is just too high. I understood this conversation to be "Gnarlroot can make TLAs decent" which is probably a fair point. But lets not get that confused with "Gnarlroot TLAs lists are competitive". That would imply that Gnarlroot is in the same realm of competitiveness as Winterleaf or Dreadwood and that's obviously not the case. In fact, one could argue that a Dreadwood TLA is actually stronger since it gets access to the Dreadwood command ability on top of its forest, possibly giving you two teleports on turn 1. He also is one of the best carriers of the Jewel of Withering (-1 to Wound) on top of being able to cast Spiteswarm Hive itself. Now that's a TLA I can get behind!

So I actually love using darkshards and dreadpears as my battleline in my Living City list but TBH they are good cheap battleline for any city. So you definitely have a good set of units to start with. With your models I would probably go with Tempest Eye for the run+shoot command ability as well as the Hawk Eyed command trait (+1 to wound on missile weapons within 12"). That would make your Corsairs and Darkshards particularly scary. I think you also get like a +5 to runs in your first turn. Anvil Guard is a bit more fluffy though, and you have a good start on the units you need for the Anvil Guard Battalion which is decent. I would make your first purchase definitely be a Sorceress (maybe even two!) Great cheap caster with some useful abilities. Next up I would buy some heavy melee hitters. Black Guard are solid and would be able to synergize well with a Sorceress. After that any Cities unit you like is fair game. Steam Tanks, Frost Phoenix, Evocators,etc are all popular choices.

If he drops the Branchwraith he will have 3 endless spells on a single caster. As it stands he has 3 casts (with thrones) so he would be going from 3 casts to 1 cast but only saving 20 points. Also I prefer Regrowth over Lifeswarm, and regrowth is free! Yea going with 2x3 or 6 Greatswords is kind of the age old debate. Either is fine IMHO. In this particular situation I think he should stick with 6 since he is attempting a teleport alpha strike. He can only send one unit per turn, so 6 would maximize the impact (and help him survive countercharges).

While I do consider Thralls uncompetitive, I don't think they are a contender for the worst. They have an elite elf statline which is great. In fact, they actually out perform many elite elves model for model. I had a small unit of 7 put 10 wounds on my Lord of change in a single combat. Yes other elite Elves can do that, but not in unconditional battleline. So I think units of 10 are externally balanced, even if their 32mm bases are a bit ridiculous. (I agree they should have 25 inch bases or get range 2") What absolutely neuters them are having access to Eels in battleline. So I wouldn't call Thralls bad, just very poorly internally balanced.

So the biggest drawback to Cogs is that it buffs your opponent too. Spiteswarm is 30pts cheaper, gives +3 instead of +2, and only buffs sylvaneth units. It can also activate in your opponents turn to give you a small buff. The trick is that you have to abandon the idea of deepstriking (which is always risky bc you can be zoned out). And instead just do a forest teleport. Here is my method. Deploy Hunters in free wood Summon second wood Cast Spiteswarm Activate Spiteswarm to buff Hunters. Extra points if you have both hunter units in range in case you roll a 1 on Venom Teleport Hunters Charge at +3 (rerollable always) Note that this is actually the core strategy behind Dreadwood armies, since they can teleport anywhere on the battlefield and aren't reliant on a second wood (or a TLA). So you may want to consider that Glade as well.

That's a solid and fun list! Thats exactly how I field my Kurnoth Hunters. Unfortunately the Tanglethorn Thicket ability triggers at the start of the charge phase, so performing a charge would turn it off. If I had to nitpick your list (and this is me really stretching) I would say drop Cogs for either Balewind Vortex or maybe some of the Sylvaneth Endless Spells. Cogs is great but super pricey. Spiteswarm Hive and/or Balewind fill similar roles and can't be turned against you.

I'm sorry but the TLA spell is bad. Its really really bad. In competitive play, nobody hangs out near my woods. Like ever. Especially multiple units. In nearly every situation I find Regrowth preferable. But yes, if I don't have any wounds on my monsters, and have several enemy units near a forest within range. I may opt to cast the warscroll spell. I admittedly don't play gnarlroot. I have found that any kind of magic investment is not a good idea in today's meta. There are a lot of armies that just shut down magic, including Tzeentch, Nagash, Khorne, or any list with Archaon. Besides, if I want my wizards to hit hard, winterleaf is just flat out better and doesn't come with any kind of prequisite for the buff. I'm not going to knock anyone for playing different and fun lists, but competitively I just don't see Gnarlrool+TLA lists standing up in any tourney I have been to.

Branchwraith vs TLA as wizards: The difference comes down to the warscroll spell. The branchwraith has one of our best warcroll spells while the TLA has one of our worst. In addition, you have your caster separated from your tank, so you don't lose your caster when you sacrifice your treelord to a scary unit. The shooting attack is admittedly pretty strong. But I would still prefer a chance at 10 dryads a turn! Factoring in second artefacts also kinda turns this argument upside down, because you are paying a tax for those and they can drastically improve a unit's performance. Is your TLA + gem better than my TL+BW? Yes, but it should be bc you buffed him with a 100pt item. I I bet your free Glade artefact isn't going on your TLA. If we wanted to compare buffed characters, I think the BW with the Stave is even stronger. Because she can use throne to buff her spells to the point that she gets 10 dryads+a forest every turn guaranteed. Sorry if I seem like a Durthu apologist. I actually don't like him that much. Having to stay near a forest is crippling vs experienced opponents. For beatstick characters I prefer Drycha or Alarielle. The mobility is clutch. All monsters bracket, but the TLA is one of the worst brackets I have ever seen on a monster at this points level. With that said, I will admit the TLA is still an ok option in certain lists. But I will never ever ever ever condone two in a list.

I think the intent is to minimize the power level of certain warlord trait/artefact combos, especially when combined with subfaction abilities. On paper this is a good thing and seems like good game design. It limits the amount of combos that have to be reviewed. Also, many of the subfaction buffs are very strong, so the forced traits/artefacts can be viewed as another balancing mechanism to particularly powerful subfactions. It also adds variety to duplicates of the same army. A Sylvaneth Wintlerleaf list is very different from a Sylvaneth Dreadwood list. In practice, it doesn't work. GW hasn't quite mastered properly balancing subfactions so 1-2 outliers end up dominating the rest and 90% of the subfactions get ignored altogether. So we see the same artefacts/traits in every list.

We are gonna have to agree to disagree on this one. A single TLA is already a stretch, but I can see the value in the free forest and command trait. Its a good way to guarantee a second forest hits the table, Durthu and Dryads LOVE that command ability. However, competitively, a vanilla treelord and a branchwraith are just better for the same exact points. You get a better fighter, and a better caster. So duplicating TLAs is just exacerbating the shortfall. Yes the TLA has access to traits and artefacts, but lets be honest, those are usually going on a Durthu or an Archie. My personal issue with TLA is the bracket. After 3 wounds he goes down to 2 attacks plus impale. That is insane for a 260pt monster. Thats an average of like 2 wounds. You would get more damage out of 5 Spites.

I don't think there is ever a reason to bring multiple Ancients. None of his abilities stack. The free tree summon is once per battle regardless of how many ancients you have. The command ability is fine but you don't really need 3 copies of it. The warscroll spell is just trash. I would stick to 3 Treelord models at the absolute most. And build them as Durthu, Treelord Ancient, and Treelord.

So in all my games vs Gotrek, I have actually had trouble avoiding him lol. There are a lot of scenarios with very few objectives. Many (perhaps most) have between 1 and 3, and eventually Gotrek will get to one and have to be dealt with. He is going to kill any unit he touches. Probably in 1 combat. Knife to Heart scenario is extremely popular as a closer for tournaments, and Gotrek is particularly brutal on that. My opponents tended to dump CP into him though. The guaranteed 6's on runs are crucial to getting him across the board.

1) More non-character units. Some of the most powerful armies (basically all of Chaos) have a very large selection of units and allies that supplement their weaknesses well. Having more tools to solve a problem is generally a solid base for good performance. 2) Less restrictions on forest placement, and the ability to summon 2 (separate) pre-game. Skaven and Deepkin get two pieces of terrain. I think we should too. Our primary allegiance ability hinges on getting a spell off or bringing a Treelord Ancient. 3) Groundshaking Stomp should go off on a 3+. Making Treelords more reliable will put them back on the table and give us a better chance in the activation wars.

I am limited to the armies I have played with/against so take mine with a grain of salt. I am also excluding grand allegiance warscrolls since they aren't meant to be competitive. 1- Liberators - These guys are particularly tragic since they are essentially the poster child of AOS. Many people end up with them because they were in the original AOS starter. You could double their attacks and drop their cost and they would still stink. 2- Ylthari - I know a-lot of the underworld crossover warscrolls are painful, but this one is the worst of all. She is like adding a worse Branchwych to a worse unit of Tree Revenants and then paying a 20pt tax. On top of not filling a battleline slot. 3-Kurnoth Hunters with Bows - Awesome model, but eclipsed by nearly every shooting unit in the game. However a few people have build entire armies around them and have had some success.

I know this is a delayed response, but here are my thoughts on why Sylvaneth are dropping lower in the tourneys lately. 1) The biggest reason is power creep. New codexes are dropping at an unprecedented level. and to be fair, we kind of got boned on our codex update. The only real change in power level came in the form of Glades and some gradual price drops several months later. 2) Hard Counters - At the end of the day, Sylvaneth are a combat army. Yes we have some movement and magic shenanigans, but we generally win games by out-fighting our opponent. Unfortunately there are armies that can easily counter that strength. Better fighty armies (slaanesh/khorne), or armies than can constantly summon/raise new models, (Death armies) or super shooty armies (Tzeentch/Cities) just straight up counter us. 3 ) Cities of Sigmar - The living city eclipsed us a bit in that they get to cherry pick our strongest units (Hunters and Drycha) while also having access to a very diverse and powerful set of units, artefacts, allegiance abilities and spells. I love the fluff of that city, but can't help but wonder if it might have inadvertently made Sylvaneth obsolete. Why should I field Dryads when I can get Phoenix Guard, Hammerers, Sisters of the Watch, or Great Swords as battleline?

Wow, to be fair that is a pretty specific counter for Durthu. It specifically avoids the Stomp and Archaon can easily kill Durthu if he activates first. I'm not even sure how to counter that aside from bubble-wrapping your models. Most of my opponents who run Archaon lists actually prefer Nurgle for the run+charge provided by the Trees. So that is an interesting (and effective!) strategy.

I'm sure that guy's Alarielle was still probably attempting Verdant Blessing every chance she got. He may have just opted for Regrowth rather than Throne. I wouldn't do that personally but being able to heal a Durthu D6+D3 every turn is scary. Keeping Durthu in his top bracket is pretty clutch. I know that Harvestboon is the "Durthu" glade. But Winterleaf is probably just as good. The exploding 6's would affect all of your units all of the time, and the Frozen Kernel is absolutely stunning on a fully buffed Durthu.

A triple Durthu list would hinge on your ability to reliably put down forests. Durthu just isn't worth his points without a forest nearby. Normally I would recommend you bring an Acorn, but Ghyrstrike is simply too good to pass up on, so you will be leaning on Alarielle to summon the woods. So just make sure she casts Throne of Vines+Verdant Blessing+Metamorphosis every single turn. I would try to target vulnerable units with Metamorphosis for the possibility of a free forest summon. If I am being perfectly honest, Durthu really needs both a forest and an Artefact to be competitive, and realistically you will only have two artefacts. So that makes the third Durthu significantly less efficient. I would actually encourage you to use those points for a Drycha or Kurnoth Hunters. If you really want a third Treelord on the table, just let Alarielle summon one.

Dang thanks for the answer! Good to know. That makes our Dryad summoning quite a bit stronger than I expected. That's 10 wounds at -1 to hit with a 3+ save and immunity to battleshock (if the woods are a place of power). To put that in perspective, it would take nearly 100 attacks of 3+/3+/0/1 to pick that unit up. That also clarifies whether or not you can gain cover mid-casualties. You actually wouldn't gain it until another unit attacked you.

Good point. Here is a dumb question. What if 10 Dryads are being attacked by a unit with multiple melee profiles? Would they lose the +1 save if the first profile causes a wound? Or would you wait until all of the wounds are allocated before pulling models? I understand that you can be "killed into cover" if your unit is partially in cover and takes a lot of wounds from multiple sources. So I'm wondering if this is a similar situation.

So I know you bought the Cities book, but based on your original post it looks like you favor human models and would prefer an army akin to a Space Marine force. If that is the case, I would actually encourage you to make a Stormcast Eternal army, and perhaps ally in some Cities of Sigmar units. Stormcasts are the direct parallel to space marines, and they are a fantastic starter army since they are low model count and have multiple "starter" boxes still widely available. If that is the case, the Stormcast Eternal Exorcism Soulstrike box is a great deal and you can still find a few around for about $160 US. Then you can use your remaining budget to buy some Free People units such as Greatswords, a Steamtank, or maybe some artillery. Making an all human Cities army might be a bit tricky, since Free Peoples don't actually have a start collecting box. You would have to buy each unit at full price and they are a high model count army. Also note that unlike 40k, almost all of AOS rules are free and easily accessable via the App. So books and datacards aren't always necessary. Once you memorize your allegiance and chapter abilities, you can really just leave your book at home.

1-Maybe I just expected too much out of the ship lol. I have also tried to split my ships up into separate drops but was wondering if just dumping the whole thing in the center of the board might be wiser. Terrain is less of an issue for an all-flying army. 2-I'm not trying to make a super competitive list but I do go to tournaments. So maybe I will leave the Eidolons at home for now and just use those points for 6 Kurnoth Hunters. 3- Good point. If I leave the Eidolons out then I will definitely need a second character. I messed around a bit with Arcane Corrosion and it was pretty solid. Dropping 3-4 mortals on Evocators on turn 1 and 2 really made a difference. But then she has failed all of her casts ever since lol 4- Cool 5- Ok wow. Cloud of Midnight it is then. Tzeentch is dominating my meta so it seems like a pretty good counter. Thanks for all the help! I have a tourney at the end of the month so I am hoping to have 2k painted by then.

Hey guys, I am a Sylvaneth player and have decided to expand my allied units of Idoneth into a full blown army. But I have some dumb questions to ask. Appreciate any help in advance! 1) How do you guys deploy your Shipwrecks? I have been splitting them up, but outside of first turn they never seem to be in range of anything. Is it better to deploy it as one giant piece as a means to disrupt movement? 2) Which Eidolon do you prefer? I am leaning towards the Sea, but I worry that most of his strength lies in the primary spell. The Storm seems a bit more reliable and consistent, especially with all the rerolls. 3) Is the Tidecaster worth it? I really like the spell but she seems a bit pricey for one cast. Especially now that Alloplex's are the same cost. 4) Do the Volturnos/King command ability, and the Enclave buffs affect mounts? 5) What items do you prefer on your characters? Specifically Kings and Eidolons?

Just deploy your Branchwraith on the board edge. In most deployments that should put you out of range of his Unbinds, at least if you go first. If for any reason the Spiteswarm fails to go off, just try to make sure you teleport your hunters into cover. That way if you blow the 9+ rerollable charge, you can rely on a rerollable 3+ save. Though I understand that cover isn't always where you need it to be. Consider deploying a secondary caster on the front line to maximize a potential Wyldwood summon. This has the added benefit of giving you two teleports and thus an additional charge attempt. Note, that even if all of the above fails miserably (it occasionally will lol), the teleport itself will still fundamentally change your opponents game plan. You simply can't ignore 6 Kurnoth Hunters being that close. Winterleaf is the go-to glade for a lot of players (and for good reason). But Dreadwood is better at mitigating the impact of things outside of your control. Such as bad matchups, unlucky objective scattering, or losing priority turns.