Age of Sigmar/Tactics/Order/Sylvaneth

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Grand Alliance Order Sylvaneth

WALKING TREES I TELL YOU! WALKING TREES!

Lore Tactics General Tactics

Welcome to the Everqueen's glorious wooden host!

Why play Sylvaneth?

• You like trees, nature and tending to a garden.
• You like playing chess when everyone else is playing the CHARGE EVERYTHING game.
• Your favorite scenes in the Lord of the Rings are the Ents' attack on Isengard, the Huorns wiping out an Orc army or both. Or Treebeard is your favorite Tolkien character (not that I blame you).
• You’re a painter who loves varieties of colors or lots of brown.
• You like armies that straddle the line between elite and horde.

Pros

• We are the kings and queens of board control. We move around quickly, we teleport, we fly, we fight who we want to when we want to, stacking the odds in our favor.
• We can alter existing terrain to serve our purposes and make new terrain pieces. Even Nighthaunt can't do the latter.
• We have a lot of glorious models, all plastic.
• Just look at Alarielle's model. Her utility across the board is almost as awesome as she looks.
• Can do a monster mash, and Alarielle can potentially be 2.5 monsters for the price of one (the extra 0.5 being due to her resurrection mechanic).
• Kurnoth Hunters. Even by heavy infantry standards in AoS, absolute damage monsters. They will do a lot of heavy lifting.
• Great, often colorful paint schemes. Whether you want your trees to be in full bloom, fiery autumn or paint them as a haunted ghastly forest, you have a lot of choices.
• Almost everything we have is at least -1 Rend.
• Healing everywhere, including a couple of restoring dead models methods (who says Death should have all the fun?)
• Lorewise, we boast one of the leaders of an entire realm and two survivors from the World-That-Was (three if you count the Spirits of Durthu).
• Easily paintable chaff with Dryads. Which is useful as you'll be painting a lot of them.

Cons

• Not exactly a starter friendly army if you want to play the game at it's fullest (this is not just about "haha charging goes brrr").
• We are very bad to transport. Seriously it's a pain with all these small bits and twigs, plus Alarielle and the Treelords are TALL. Even foam packaged boxes hurt us. You'll want LOTS OF MAGNETS and a big metal box/boxes and magnetic sheets plus glue, as you'll be taking lots of dryads. Plus you'll need an extra box for all those woods you might be able to summon.
• We can be expensive in cash; that's lots of woods and non-Dryad and non-Treelord units aren't cheap. It also relates to being bad to transport, as we practically need those DIY carry methods, which aren't cheap.
• Except on the big things, saves are good, but not great. Even the Kurnoth Hunters lost their re-roll saves ability. This can be mitigated with All-out Defense, Mystic Shield and various ward saves.
• Our monsters are good but will struggle against their counterparts in other armies; even Spirits of Durthu will feel the hurt fighting a Greater Daemon or a Mega-Gargant.
• Placing woods bigger than one model can be tricky, which also means you loose their LOS blocking.

Rulebooks

Faction rules and abilities: Battletome Sylvaneth (2022)

Additional rules: Broken Realms Kragnos (Alarielle and Warsong warscrolls), FAQ (Endless spells and Wyldwood warscrolls)

Latest Matched play points: General's Handbook 2021

Core rules: here

Matched play rules, battleplans and expansions: General's Handbook 2022-23 Season 2, plus the battleplans from the Core Book.

Supplement all the above with any Errata and Designers' Commentary from the FAQs.

Allegiance Abilities

Battle Traits

Armies with the SYLVANETH allegiance have the following abilities:

Glades You may pick from subfactions, which may be seen below.

Places of Power After determination of territories, but before placement of faction terrain, you can pick 3 terrain features outside of the enemy territory and make them overgrown (they will largely follow the rules for Awakened Wyldwoods now). You can heal 1 wound to each of your units at the beginning of your hero phase, if the unit is wholly within 9" of any overgrown terrain or one of your Wyldwoods.

From the Woodland Depths Walk the hidden paths - redeploy one of your units from wholly within 9" of a Wyldwood or overgrown terrain to and put them into a Wyldwood or overgrown terrain. The unit must be set up 9" away from enemy units. Also, it must be set up wholly within 9" of the target terrain and the target terrain must not be within 3" of enemies.

Strike and fade - In your combat phase, when a unit has fought, you can redeploy it with the same restrictions like the previous ability. It must be wholly within 9" to be able to and you can only do this once per turn.

Verdant Blessing All your wizards know this spell: Verdant Blessing. CV of 6, 18" range. Set up an Awakened Wyldwood visible to the caster 3" away from enemies, invocations, endless spells, objectives and other terrain features.

Awakened Wyldwood (This ability has since been replaced with the updated warscroll for Awakened Wyldwoods). Additionally, read the Core Rules, which surprisingly have a whole chapter on Wyldwoods. For whatever reason, the warscroll does not mention any of those.

Seasons of War In addition to picking a subfaction, you also pick a season:

• The Burgeoning - your units within 9" of overgrown terrain or friendly Wyldwoods get a 6+ FNP if they did not charge.
• The Reaping - +3" on Places of Power and From the Woodland Depths
• The Dwindling - get once per turn reroll casting, dispell or unbind within 9" of overgrown terrain or friendly Wyldwoods.
• Everdusk - -3" on Places of Power and From the Woodland Depths. Unm. hit rolls of 6 wholly within 6" of overgrown terrain or friendly Wyldwoods by melee weapons get 2 hits.

Command Traits

A general of an army with a SYLVANETH allegiance can choose one Command Trait from the lists below (be advised that if you choose your army to be one of the Wargroves, you are forced to take a specific command trait instead of one of these):

Aspects Of War

1. Gnarled Warrior: Get ethereal
2. Lord of Spites: if enemy ends pile in within 3", they get -1 attack for this phase
3. Warsinger: +3" move at the start of movement phase for all friendly units wholly within 12"

Aspects Of Renewal

Wizards only

1. Nurtured by magic: on successful, non-unbounded cast. Heal D3 to a friendly unit wholly within 18" once per turn.
2. Spellsinger: you may measure and check visibility from a spell from an Awakened Wyldwood instead.
3. Radiant Spirit: If affected by a spell/endless spell (unit wholly within 12"), roll a dice, on a 4+ ignore the effect. Note the correct usage of affect and effect.

Artefacts

One hero in an army with a sylvaneth allegiance and has chosen to take the sylvaneth allegiance abilities, plus one hero for every battalion selected, can choose one Artefact from the lists below.

Boons Of The Everqueen

1. Greenwood Gladius: +D3 attacks on one melee weapon.
2. Crown of Fell Bowers: +1 toWound against a unit within 6" in the combat phase for all Sylvaneth units.
3. Seed of Rebirth: When slain the first time, 2+ to ignore and heal D3. (Excess damage is negated)

Relics Of Nature Wizards only.

1. Acorn of the Ages: Set up a Wyldwood wholly within 12", one-use only. 3" away from everything. The old favourite artefact of the one drop armies. You can simply throw a forest-shaped wrench into enemy charge lanes, you can let an isolated Hero summon their own reinforcement spawn point, you can make some cover to make a stand.
2. The Vesperal Gem: Once per turn, automatically succeed a Deepwood spell roll, which cannot be unbound. Sounds great.... but, then roll a dice, on a 1 you get D3 mortals. Ouchy. Good thing you have healing out the ass. Amazing relic because while you NEED magic, you don't have a lot of multi spell casters OR casting bonuses. Very solid choice. Note, Verdant Blessing is not part of Deepwood, so no autotree spamming.
3. Luneth's Lamp: +2 unbinding/dispelling rolls for endless spells. And you can banish invocations.

Spell Lore

All sylvaneth wizards know Verdant Blessing Verdant Blessing (6+): Casting value 6. Sets up an Awakened Wyldwood wholly within 24". As useful as the Wyldwoods are to you, this spell is pretty good. This used to be 18", part of the Deepwood list, and was more or less auto include.

Deepwood Spell Lore

Alarielle knows all of these (The Warsong Revenant lost its ability to do so). All other sylvaneth wizard can pick one for each spell lore enhancement taken.

1. Throne of Vines (9+): You can heal 1 wound per phase to the caster until your next hero phase
2. Regrowth (5+): Casting value 5. Heal D6 Wounds to a friendly, visible sylvaneth unit wholly within 18". TAKE IT. I don't care about your strategy, take it. Alarielle? Take it. Treelord Ancient? Take it. Drycha? Take it unless you want a suicide bomb.
3. The Dwellers Below (7+): Pick a unit within 12", roll a D6 for every model in the unit, every 5+ deals a Mortal Wound. Basically Vermintide/New Treason of Tzeentch. It's good, with a potentially gigantic damage output.
4. Deadly Harvest (6+): Each enemy unit within 3" gets D3 mortals. Nice when you're stuck in melee, but only really good in combination with the Spellsinger command trait. Also, remember that it gets better against multiple small units, but worse against horde armies - essentially the opposite of Dwellers below.
5. Verdurous Harmony (7+): A unit wholly within 18" regains 1 slain model (or D3 for Dryads, Tree/Spite Revs). Amazing spell, just can be a little tricky to consistently cast without bonuses.
6. Treesong (7+): Pick an Awakened Wyldwood within 16". Your units wholly within 9" get +1 rend with melee weapons

Endless Spells

Note that unlike the some of the generic endless spells, the Sylvaneth spells can't be used by your opponent against you (other than moving them out of harms way).

• Gladewyrm (60pts, CV 7, range 6", move 8", fly): Ancient protectors of the spice realmroots.
  • Does D3 mortal wounds to non-SYLVANETH units within 1" and heals D3 wounds to SYLVANETH units wholly within 6" of where it ends up. This only happens on a 3+.
  • Pretty good for the cost. For best effect, lob it in the middle of any combat not involving your battleline.

• Vengeful Skullroot (60pts, CV 6, range 6", move 8", fly): Spooky tree
  • Adds D3 to fleeing non-SYLVANETH models that fail battleshock tests within 3".
  • On a 2+, does D3 mortal wounds to non-SYLVANETH units it passes across, boosted to D6 if said units are within 6" of an AWAKENED WYLDWOOD.
  • If you can get that D6 off, then this is great. Given the myriad ways of avoiding battleshock, and that enemies avoid woods where possible, you might find better use out of the slightly cheaper Gladewyrm.

• Spiteswarm Hive (40pts, CV 7, range 15"): More of Drycha's little gribbles.
  • Lets you (and only you) choose one of the following effects in every hero phase (including your opponents) each turn it's around if you have a wizard or hero within 9". Roll a dice for one SYLVANETH unit wholly within 9", on a 2+ either add 3" to normal moves and charge moves or worsen rend against that unit by 1.
  • Great spell, however be careful when using the move bonus that your models don't get out of range too quickly.
  • Best case is to place it halfway between you and an enemy, use the move bonus to get into combat, then use the save bonus during your opponents turn (assuming you survive the first round of combat).
  • The small base size helps to stop it getting in the way of movement, assuming you point the gribbles out of the way.

Glades

Every Sylvaneth army gets to optionally belong to a glade for free, which gives you an extra ability or command ability. Some glades give you additional battleline options.

Dreadwood

• Ability: Malicious Tormentors: You can use both the Strike and Fade, as well as the Walk the Hidden Paths ability twice per turn once per battle. But you must use the additional uses on Spite Revenants.
• Battleline Options: Spite Revenants

Gnarlroot

• Ability: Keepers of the Arcane: Once per turn (wizard must be wholly within 9" of Wyldwoods or overgrown terrain) use 3D6 for casting roll and ditch the lowest.

Heartwood

• Ability: Masters of the Hunt: Pick 3 enemy units after deployment. You get +1 toHit against them.
• Battleline Options: Kurnoth Hunters

Harvestboon

• Ability: Vibrant Surge: pre-game move for all Spiterider Lancers and Revenant Seekers with 12".
• Battleline Options: Spiterider Lancers and Revenant Seekers

Ironbark

• Command Ability: Stand Firm: enemy combat phase, if enemy unit charged within 3". On a 2+ D3 MW. Can be used multiple times but against different units.

Oakenbrow

• Ability: Our Roots Run Deep: For your damage tables of Durthu, Treelord and Ancient; you count as having half the wounds suffered. When you look at the warscrolls, you will see, that they will fight almost until death with their top profile.

• Battleline Options: Treelords

Winterleaf

• Ability: Winter's Bite: Enemy units within 3" cannot retreat. Use with Everdusk season to shut of redeploy within 3".

Warscrolls

Named Leaders

• Alarielle the Everqueen: (840pts). The over-the-top God model for Sylvaneth. She can't hit as hard as Archaon or outcast Teclis and Nagash, but offers strong support for her army. That support comes with a major price tag though, at 840 and lacking an in-built ward save, she's almost as overcosted as Nagash. Almost. What Alarielle's lost in some areas, she's gained in synergy. Alarielle also counts as the general even if you have another general, and retains most of her strong points such as speed, durability, the free summon and her spellcasting. Once per battle, she can make all terrain features count as overgrown until the end of that turn, which creates more bubbles of ward save (which can give her one too) and potential mortal wounds for enemies. Plus her shooting attack is -2 Rend and a flat 6 damage (decreasing as she takes wounds, but her damage table is much more forgiving, only bracketing after 6 wounds). She still has the Talon to potentially one-shot a dangerous model. Despite her power, it's all about how you use her, not the raw stats.
  • While no longer able to auto-heal other Sylvaneth (she can still heal them with spells), Alarielle can now resurrect herself once per battle. When she dies, roll a dice and add the number of the current battle round to the roll. If it's 6+, she comes back with 8 wounds allocated (which she can quickly heal). Also note being able to resurrect gives you more opportunity to summon that free unit.
  • Several of her points went into the free unblockable summon, which effectively drops her cost by ~200 points (or at least 130 points - the cost of the cheapest unit she can summon, dropping her to at least 710 points in practice), and you get to pick the unit. Note that the Dryad and Rev options give you a reinforced unit without using up one of your reinforcement options. And yes, this summon can be used after she's resurrected if it wasn't beforehand.

• Drycha Hamadreth: (335pts). Drycha is back and madder than ever. Her Flitterfuries or Squirmlings now deal a mortal wound on 6 to hit instead of going through the attack sequence. The Flitterfuries are an 18" shooting attack with 10 attacks single damage, rend -1. Meanwhile Squirmlings are 2" melee attack, also with 10 attacks single damage, but no rend. At the start of each battle round, you can choose what mood she's in, and as a result one of these attack doubles to 20! Her talons' attacks have been reduced to 4, but for good reason. Despite having the MONSTER keyword, Drycha no longer has a damage table. You read that right, she's always at maximum effectiveness until dead! Plus she kept all her other benefits, and only for 15 points more than before. This lady is a beast!

• Ylthari: (180pts, with Guardians) Shadespire Hero takes root in AOS. Requires you to bring Ylthari's Guardians along with, and outside Shadespire she's currently as useful as Vokmortion is for the Bonereapers (that's bad). Has a bit more melee power than a Branchwych and doesn't share their keyword (is labelled a thornwych). She re-rolls wound rolls of one and her spell is a supercharged arcane bolt, giving you an average of 2 mortals per cast. Even if she's cheaper than a Branchwych and 5 Tree Revenants, for these reasons and more (including being labelled Oakenbrow, which is useless for these Guardians in 3.0), don't take her unless you like the models or use her in Shadespire.

• Qulathis the Exile (100pts) Kicked out from Cursed City
  • Standard 5 wound hero with usual meh melee.
  • Surprisingly No magic. Instead you get three 1 damage shots at +3/+3/-1, with additional mortals on 6s. Best thing here is the 24" range.
  • Has her own special glade, so can't be buffed by any of our glade bonuses.
  • Against missiles her save goes from 5+ to 3+. Most the time you still want to keep her in a LOS blocking wood, but this gives you more options. Then again, it's doubtful opponents will be wasting time raining fire down upon her.
  • This lady is purely for use as a sniper. However, you can only take one of her, and she can't take artefacts. Sigh. If you could boost her shooting output or give her a way to boost Kurnoth Bows then maybe she'd find a use. Possible if you really want more firepower and don't have room for more Kurnoth bows.
  • Missing from GHB2021 points. Still valid? Who cares.

• Lady of Vines (325pts) The missing hand of Alarielle is finally available as another mandatory general and a powerful wizard who can cast/unbind twice with a special spell that gives a 5++ ward to all friendly walking trees in a 12" bubble. She also counts as an Awakened Wyldwood for any perks provided for being near them, and the ability to deal either a -1 to hit her or +1 to hit the enemy within 3". Her weapons are fairly decent too, with her melee attacks having a good reach and damage and her ranged attack being very powerful if hampered by its swingy d6 damage. She also has the ability to summon a unit of 10 Dryads once per game on a 2+, effectively lowering her cost by 100 points (unless you roll a 1). Taking her with her goddess-mother is over 1000 points, which can give you three generals by adding a third character, but again that's over 1000 points! But on her own, she's definitely a good choice. Consider her a support-y defense version of Drycha.

Generic Leaders

• Branchwych: (130pts) Aggressive support wizard.
  • As long as she's taken at least one wound in damage, she gets 2 extra attacks on her scythe.
  • Her spell Unleash Spites (5+) is a damaging pulse effecting all enemy units within 9". It works best against the more units that are in range - If there are only 1 or 2 target units in range, then arcane bolt will usually do more damage than the pulse, but it gets better against more units, of course. On average, you'll expect 1.11 mortal wounds per unit.
  • In Skirmish, the pulse is extremely broken, as every model is a unit. So, get within range of the front line and suddenly every model is hit with rolling a minimum of 5 dice, giving mortal wounds on sixes. Most of those models are single wound chaff, because skirmish doesn't allow you to take any of the good stuff, and you've got a game winning massacre. Sadly that pulse is the only thing we've got going for ourselves in Skirmish.
  • The oft whispered about Branchwych Bomb involves sticking her on a Balewind Vortex inside a mid to frontline wood, giving her Deadly Harvest, Spellsinger, and using whatever casting bonuses you can get hold of. Then sit back and cast both spells, spamming mortals out in 21" and 15" bubbles. In practice you're tying up far too much to get this off reliably. Just don't run crying when your 5 wound guy gets wiped out pronto after one round of this. Clearly hilarious if you can get it to work.
    • It's possible to invest even more into this strategy by adding an Umbral Spellportal, but even that doesn't make it worthwhile.

• Spirit of Durthu: (370pts) This is SPARTAAAAA *ahem* supercharged Treelord. Note that as this isn't a named character you can take multiple, but the cost is going to hurt. The Spirit of Durthu is a damage monster, with powerful shooting, terrifying melee and all the standard tricks of the vanilla Treelord. A shooting attack that is basically the vanilla Treelord's Strangleroots on steroids, with higher range, more shots and higher damage per shot. His sword is as terrifying as it looks, with constant damage 6 so long as he stays in good health and 1 bonus attacks for being near a wood.
  • That damage table is a killer for him. Take six hits and that sword goes from dealing 6 to D6 damage. Do the math, and a block of Kurnoth will output a lower higher end, but similar average output and degrade slower.
  • While he lost the meager Bravery buff, he has gained two new abilities: a new Monstrous Rampage that makes an enemy fight last on a 3+ and the ability to teleport from being near one wood or overgrown terrain to another, letting you hop between key enemies.

• Treelord Ancient: (360pts). The swiss army knife Treelord. If Durthu is a supercharged Treelord, then this is the slightly weaker but more useful version. Compare to a Vanilla Treelord, this guy has 1 less attack on its Sweeping Blows. This doesn't seem like much, but the drop from 4 to 3 attacks is actually quite drastic. And what does this old fella get in return? An extra 2 to its Bravery, 18" range on its strangle roots, gains a command ability and becoming a freakin' wizard! His unique spell will do D3 damage to any enemy units on or around your woods. It's either a great deterrent to entering your woods or a great punishment if the opponent was dumb enough to actually do it. Even more useful now we are spitting out trees three at a time. Once per battle he can unconditionally summon a new wood. This would make him an almost must take if he was less points. Note this is once per game, not once per Ancient per game, but he's still a good option.
  • If you teleport the Ancient to the wood, then next turn a 24" verdant blessing wood should give you all the range you need.

• Arch-Revenant: (120pts) Force multiplier for the Kurnoths, 3.0 was kind to her. No longer has to sacrifice her mount. Has the best non-Behemoth Hero melee in Sylvaneth (which doesn't say much): three 2" 3+/3+/-2 Dmg 2 attacks with her glave and a single 4+/3+ Dmg D3 attack with her mount. More survivable than a Branchwych, with five wounds, a 4+ save. Can adapt an offensive stance, which gives her +1 attack to her glaive or a defensive stance that gives her a 4+ ward save. Automatically buffs Kurnoth Hunters within 12" of herself, allowing them to re-roll hit rolls of 1 (both melee and shooting). Has a great command ability, adding 1 attack to each model's weapon in a unit within 9" (12" if the Arch-Revenant is your General). Combine this ability with alpha-striking unit of Tree-Revenants, or buff the hell out of Kurnoth Sword/Scythes - either way, it'll really hurt your opponent. Only works in the melee phase, so no buffing Kurnoth bows. Keep her safe, and she'll reward your army for it.

• Warsong Revenant (305pts) Heavy support wizard introduced in Broken Realms. Can cast twice, only unbind once and adds +1 to casting within 9" of a wood. His personal spell is the same as the Branchwych's but with a different name. Has a 12" bubble that adds +1 for friendly Sylvaneth bravery and -1 to any enemies within that range. Less squishy than our usual heroes: 7 wounds, the standard 5+ save is boosted with a 4+ ward save and he could take Regrowth. Fairly maneuverable too with 8" range and flies. Attacks 5 times with rend at damage 2. Plus there's a 3" range. Think of him as a budget Lady of Vines or a much pricier and tougher Branchwych (with bravery shenanigans thrown in), and you're good to go.
  • Remember the oft talked about Branchwych bomb (see above), well now we have the Warsong bomb. Give Spellsinger, get him near a wood or ideally within a big wood, prime with throne the turn before, then spam his spell at every enemy unit within 15" for an average of 3.333 mortals (assuming a single throne, with .6 for each addition throne). Boost with an addition D3 for everything with 9" from Deadly Harvest. Maybe throw in the umbral spellportal. Deadlier than the Branchwych bomb, but you're still making him a huge target and it's a lot of points/resources wrapped up to make this happen. He will survive a lot longer than the Wych though.

Battleline

• Dryads: (100pts, 10) Your rank and file angry trees. At first glance the ladies don't look like much, having only a 5+ Save and 2 attacks at 4+/4+/-/1. But they quickly become incredible as in units of 10+ they gain +1 Save (combine with Mystic Shield, All Out Defense and cover for a 2+ save), they hit on 3+ in your combat phase and they also have 2" range on their attacks, letting them fight in thick, two-row hedges. They also profit from being near a wood (-1 to hits against them), this is in addition to +1 save for being in cover. They are also very fast at 7". Keep them in big units as the Save-bonus and the 2" range heavily reward you for doing so. Ultimately, these ladies are quite versatile and so can be used for a variety of situations.

• Tree-Revenants: (110pts, 5) Elite Troops for tricksy players - not your mainline infantry. They have Rend in melee, unlike the Drayds, a banner that gives a 6" pile-in (A handy counter to having your pile-in reduced, as with Lumineth Spirits of the Wind…) and they have an extra wound per model. Most importantly, the musician allows them to use a better Spirit Paths rule, letting you take them off the table and then place them anywhere on the table more than 9" from enemy units. They have the coolest rerolls in the game, getting to reroll 1 dice per phase. So this seems wonky in melee, doesn't it? Well, it also allows them to reroll the dice to run, one of the charge dice, the Battleshock dice... you get the picture. (This ability has been replaced in the latest Battle time - now they can get All-out Attack or All-out Defense without spending command point). Do not use these guys as as you would Dryads. That would be a waste. They are for board control.
  • Charge blockers. Save until your opponent gets ready to charge a very killy unit they want to get into combat asap, then teleport a wall of Revenants in front. Revenants will die instantly in the following combat, but it'll free up your more important units.
  • Back line threatening. Your opponent can no longer keep those war machines, Jezzails and Poisoned Wind Mortars unguarded. Minimum-size squads of them also have just high enough of a damage output to cut all the aforementioned units to ribbons. But, you will say, the 9" charge after teleporting is improbable. No. Since they can reroll one of the charge dice, they are more likely to make that charge than to fail it. A good rule of thumb is to use 2 units of minimum size. That way, it's very likely at least one of them will make the charge and then they will more than likely deal enough damage to neuter the war machine you attacked.
  • Objective taking. Without any Revenants, your opponent might decide to leave a captured objective unguarded. With Revenants either you can teleport and grab the objective or they'll be wise to this and need to keep a unit tied up - one big enough to survive a teleport and charge strike.

Other Troops

• Spite-Revenants: (105pts, min 5) Less tricksy, more creepy Tree-Revenants. Same as before, except for three major differences. First, they gained an extra wound, like the Tree-Revenants. And while they lost their battleshock trick, they now deal Mortal Wounds on a 6 to hit. They're your glass cannon melee assassins now. Third, they're no longer Battleline, unless you take the Dreadwood wargrove.

• Gossamid Archers: (215pts, min 5) Lightweight skirmishing archers to the firing lines of the Kurnoth Hunters. This entire group can fly around and oddly have an expanded cohesion range but have a meager 5+ save and 2 wounds per model. Sadly, these bows are pretty small, given only a 12" range and no Rend. Their selling point is that each unmodified hit roll of 6 does D3 Mortal Wounds per shot. Even with such potent potential, this pretty much forces them to fly away from any conflicts, and if they use the Unleash Hell command on an enemy within 3", they can retreat on a 2+, giving you a pack of close-range harassers.

• Kurnoth Hunters With Kurnoth Greatswords: (250pts, min 3) The ultimate wooden killing machine (*Note: all three varieties of Kurnoth Hunter are basically minor Heroes at 5 Wounds and a 3+ Save). Each sword tosses out 4 attacks at -1 Rend with damage 2 and an additional mortal wound on wound rolls of 6. At the end of combat you deal mortal wounds on a 4+ for each model in your unit. Only 1" range on a large base. Always take in threes only. Despite that, these guys are crazy good now, especially if you take them in Winterleaf and the Season of Dwindling. Stick an Arch-Revenant next to a unit, send into something big, and watch it go **POOF**. Pop command ability for 10 attacks hitting on 3+, 5 attacks on 2+, reroll 1's to hit, with 6's causing mortal wounds AND extra attacks?! All wounding on 3's with their -1 rend and flat 2 damage (Bonus points for using the Crown of Fell Bowers as a cherry on top so they wound on 2's). Even Nagash and Archaon will tremble in terror.
  • Consider pretending you're playing 40K and magnetise the arms for different weapon loadouts below. If you fix the weapons on one unit then you'll have enough shoulder pads spare to better magnetise a second unit. The Quiverbugs are trickier to magnetise. Sadly there are no official rules for using plasma cannons.

• Kurnoth Hunters With Kurnoth Scythes: (250pts, 3) Same as above*, but with longer weapon range of the scythes, which tosses out 3 attacks at Rend -2 and damage D3. The scythes do more damage against 2+ saves, break even against 3+ and the swords win against everything else. But that's before taking into account the mortal wounds on 6 the Swords deal out (which the scythes don't get). However, the scythes have 2" reach. You'll want this for units of 6 or more to get them all into combat or if you want to place a screen in front and attack through them. The Scythe-weilders also gained the reworked Tanglethorn Thickets, which deals 1 Mortal Wound to each enemy unit that piles in.

• Kurnoth Hunters with Kurnoth Greatbows: (230pts, min 3) See above*. They instead carry bows with a stunning 30" range, two shots per model and 2 damage per shot, these guys are basically artillery. In melee, they do a lot less damage overall than the swords/scythes. The Echoes of Doom boxset adds a new aspect by giving them the ability to share an All-out Attack or All-out Defense order to a nearby unit within 4+, improving the efficiency of your orders. They're the cheapest of the three Kurnoth Hunter loadouts.

• Dragonspites:

The mounts for the Spiteriders and Revenants, they give both units 5 wounds,4+ saves, 3 pretty decent attacks, a banner which gives 6 inch pile in moves, a hornblower which lets the rally command ability work on a 5+ instead of a 6, and an ability which lets all wounds be healed at the end of each phase if a model was slain by this unit(so only combat since neither unit has ranged attacks)

• Spiterider Lancers: (210pts, min 3)

One of 2 of the new mounted units, this one being the combat focused one. With 14 inch move and first strike on the charge, they're pretty much designed to charge right out of the gate to whatever you want to take the most damage right out of the gate and don't want to suffer damage from. Harvestboon Battleline

• Revenant Seekers: (235pts, min 3)

The more supporty mounted unit, though they come close to the damage output of the Spiteriders. Their thing is that at the end of your movement phase, you can pick 1 unit within 12 inches and bring back a 5 or less wound model on a 2+ roll. You can bring back pretty much any unit you'd like, but the Kurnoth are the best choice easy, followed by either of the mounted units including itself . And given that they can be your battleline, they would make a very durable unit since they can recover wounds as well. Harvestboon Battleline

• Ylthari’s Guardians: (Free with Ylthari) Shadespire Tree Revenants without the good stuff.
  • Can only be taken along with Ylthari.
  • Tree Revenants without a musician or banner, so you loose the pile in and teleport abilities.
  • In return you get three different weapon profiles (sword, glaive, bow), which are upgrades on the Tree Revenants.
  • Plus on a D6 3+ you get to attack first, which is going to make them a lot less fragile than standard Tree Revenants.
  • Same reroll rules as the standard Tree Revenants. Plus you get to reroll wound rolls of 1.

• Skaeth’s Wild Hunt: (110pts, min/max 5) Straight outa Beastgrave
  • 5 unique models with ok melee (max damage of six wounds with all models) and a little bit of shooting (a single close range and single far range attack)
  • One wound each, but the leader gets one extra. And the one of them is a Wizard.
  • Might be easier to just think of these guys as a 120pt six wound wizard with a behemoth damage table. Remember, each model killed results in fewer attacks/abilities. Just make sure you remove the models you most care about last.
  • Spell (CV 7), as long as the model lives, gives you +1 to wounds rolls on a nearby unit, which is neat. Especially given that's something not covered elsewhere in the faction. Sadly it's a fairly high casting value.
  • They can still charge and shoot after running, not that you'll be charging them much.
  • Unique and not a hero.
  • Really, the +1 wounds spell to work alongside your other buffs is the reason you'll be taking these guys. In an either/or choice, the Arch Revenant is 20pts cheaper and better, and the wych/wraiths are 50% cheaper if you just want a wizard.
  • Like Ylthari, labelled Oakenbow, which as per FAQ, means that if you take another glade, these guys do not benefit from the glade bonus. Which makes them now even more useless than before.

Behemoths

• Treelord: (260pts) The Walking Tree. Was nerfed, but got a consolation prize. At the start of combat he can stomp and on a 4+ cause one enemy unit within 3" to fight at the end of combat. But the Impaling Talons lost the Mortal Wounds ability and were made a standard melee attack. It got an extra damage, plus the Treelord got 2 extra wounds and can still shoot like before and they can now prevent pile-in moves until the end of the turn if they hit an enemy in combat. Instead of moving or retreating, if 6" from a wood, he can teleport to another wood, more than 9" from enemies. This is in addition to the single unit that can do the same using the Navigate Realmroots ability on the Awakened Wyldwood warscroll. Deep Strike! Everything this guy can do, Durthu and the Ancient can do, and more. But you're paying almost twice for them. Take alongside a big hitter, teleporting with them, stomping and attacking through them.
  • Arguably more likely to be seen played now that Oakenbrow can fields them as Battleline and makes their damage table almost irrelevant; there's always someone out there looking to field an all monster list, and now Sylvaneth can join that club too.

Scenery

• Awakened Wyldwood: Trees everywhere - hopefully
  • An Awakened Wyldwood consists of either 3 wyldwood models arranged to form a circle. Everything inside is treated as woods. Or it consists of 3 individual woods more then 3" from each other. You choose.
  • Because they are treated as separate pieces, if you fail to place one, you can still place the others.
  • No longer stated that you can use the old citadel wood dinner plates.
  • After deciding territories, place one of these beauties on you own side, 3" from objectives and other sceneries. In most games, this'll serve as you "base" and dryad factory.
  • Instead of moving in the movement phase, ONE SYLVANETH unit wholly within 6" of an Awakened Wyldwood can be moved to wholly within 6" of another, different, wood, and of course more than 9" from any enemy. Treelord varieties have the Spirit Walk Ability and can teleport in addition to this one unit.
  • Line of sight blockers (for a wyldwood made of 3 pieces) if that line covers at least 3 inches inside the wood. This is great for general survivability. Blocking doesn't count for any model with wounds 10 or more - which is reasonable, but doesn't quite make sense for Treelords (you know, the guys that look like trees). Individual woods (not in a group of 3) do not block LOS but should still provide cover like other scenery.
  • At the end of the charge phase, each non SYLVANETH unit within 1" on a 6 gets D3 mortals.
  • Every spell cast wholly within 6" of a wood, each non SYLVANETH unit within 1" on a 5+ gets D3 mortals.
    • Remember those damages hurt your allies and your ally in doubles games.
  • Counts as a standard wyldwood, which means they blocks LOS between models with at least 3" of wyldwood between them. Does not count models those with more than 10 wounds each.
    • Sadly this blocks Kunroth bow LOS too.
    • This is going to be a little fiddly to get right, and probably never come into play on single model woods.
  • With Monsterous Rampage, an enemy monster can destroy a wood at the end of each charge phase. That includes teleporting, mortal damage and LOS. Ouch.
    • However, RAW, you can still use a broken as a destination for a Sylvaneth teleport. Plus anything not on the awakened wyldwood warscroll still works. So that includes Treelord teleporting and all the little wood bonuses everyone gets on their own warscrolls.
    • This all just encourages you to place lots of single model woods.
  • All Treelords and one other unit per turn can teleport between two of these instead of moving (this is in addition to the standard one unit wood teleport)
  • Branchwraiths, Branchwyches, Dryads and Durthu all gain bonuses for being near a wood.
  • The Acorn artefact and the Treelord Ancient can both unconditionally place one wood per game. The verdant blessing spell (6+) is known by all our wizards and can place a new wood per turn if successfully cast. Alarielle can set up a new wood after killing a unit with her spell (if there is room). All of these need to be 3" from objectives and other terrain, plus any additional terrain placement rules in play.
    • Using the rules above, that's either a single 3 wood piece or three individual woods.
  • You could end up bringing along 8 packs of these, which is a significant upfront cost for the army and it's a lot of extra plastic you're carting around between games.
  • Note that the entire inside of the ring of woods is counted as part of the Awakened Wyldwood, which means you can't use a wildwood to surround another piece of scenery or objective.

Battalions

Narrative only now. Battalions are now universal otherwise.

Forest Folk

A Branchwraith and three units of Dryads

Units can retreat and then still charge that turn.

Great for controlling the flow of combat. Essentially the opposite of Household. Stops your tar pits getting locked into combat with something you didn't want to, usually due to them charging first. Alternatively, if done correctly, you can bypass combat screens - charge into the screen one turn, then the following turn, retreat further up the board and charge your real target. Ignore the Branchwraith here, she's just included to reduce the number of drops.

Free Spirits

A Spirit of Durthu and three units of Kurnoth Hunters

Always rolls a 6 for a run.

Nice. Running instead of charging allows you to tanglethorn for save rerolls when the enemy charges in the following turn. You'll be wanting Scythes because you'll need the range on your tiny pile in. Don't use it to try and deepstrike Durthu or the like if board placement has denied you getting out any woods, as you'll now have lone units who can no longer shoot or charge until the next turn vulnerable to counterattack.

If you are taking these units, then you probably are also want the cheapest battleline you can get hold of, which is 3x5 Spites - and if you're doing that, then Outcasts is 40 points cheaper. Anyone wanting three artefacts, then this and Outcasts together would work.

Household

A vanilla Treelord, a Branchwych and a unit of Tree-Revenants

Units locked in combat with the Household cannot retreat.

That's an amazing ability for controlling the board, sadly the unit choices aren't the best. However, consider a blob of 30 freely teleporting Tree Revenants with 6" pile ins (and a 60pt hoard discount) and you're going to lock down whatever threats you want to for multiple turns until they chew through or die. Use the woods to throw your Treelord followed by Branchwych bomb to lock down a different unit elsewhere. Now consider how much six boxes of Revenants is going to cost to do this. Yeah.

Lords of the Clan

Two to four Treelord Ancients and one to three normal Treelords

During your shooting phase, every enemy within 6" of 2+ Treelords, gets D3 mortals on a 2+ roll.

At 60 points, this is a bargain given it's only 10 more than a command point, and If you really want lots of trees then this is a no brainer. Ability requires you teleport deep strike in pairs, but you won't get those mortals until your next turn after charging (assuming the whole pair stays alive). Having to take two Ancients is the tax here - most the Ancient's abilities don't double up, leaving your second Ancient mostly as a Treelord with a much lower damage output (however, you do get the additional spell plus the choice of which Ancient to use for its abilities). Being forced to take in pairs is a good as the stomp becomes much more reliable (from 50% to 75%), with the chance you can stomp a second enemy. For the most use out of this you want two pairs of Ancient+Vanilla, but that uses up almost half your points and all your behemoths slots in a 2000pt game. Two Ancients and one Vanilla is easier to build around, but that magnifies the Ancient tax and neuters the battalion ability. For pure damage output and survivability, Dreadwooding a large block of Kurnoth's is mathematically the better choice. However, two pairs of stomping Trees are much more flexible. In addition, taking LOTC enables you to take a mixed battleline (say, one each of Spites, TreeRevs and Dryads) instead of the usual block of Outcasts or Forest Folk - or take both if you really want the artefacts/CPs.

Outcasts

Three units of Spite-Revenants

Any enemy unit that fails battleshock within (not wholly within!) 3" loses an additional D3 models.

Remember that Spites lower enemy bravery too. If you want the cheapest possible battleline plus battalion, then this is the choice to take, for just 280pts total - just don't expect them to last long.

Wargrove

One Lords of the Clan, three Households, three Forest Folks, one Free Spirits and one Outcasts. 80pts (5,240pts min -> 11,010pts max)

Our only remaining super battalion. Allows you to place two Wyldwoods at the start of the game instead of one. Still, way too big to use unless you're playing 6000 point games.

Drycha's Spitegrove

Drycha, 2 units of Spite Revenants.

Spites can be great, but the biggest thing they lack is rend. This fixes that, but for only 2 units. Encourages you to take bigger units of spites, which may not be what you want. However, if you're taking Drycha, this is a no brainer if you want a cheap battalion.

Allied Armies

The problem with allies, is that they do not get the SYLVANETH-Keyword. Our Forests can and will turn on our allies if they get too close. This massively reduces their mobility, weakens our board control and potentially makes us lose our models without the enemy having to do anything.

• Stormcast Eternals: You don't particularly need stormcast. Their play style is too different from traditional Sylvaneth play and overall they don't synergise too well. Stormcasts are too slow to keep up with us and allies can't make up for this with Deep Strikes. Prosecutors might be a better option than the infantry on foot, but the would-be woefully under supported, due to the lack of Stormcast Heroes. Additionally, they have worse shooting than our (costlier) options and we do not benefit from Stormcast specific abilities or commands.

• Idoneth Deepkin: The fish guys have lots of cross-unit synergies, which are of no use here. Consider the Akhelian Guards (Ishlaen and Morrsarr). Compared to the Kurnoths, they are faster at 14' and can fly (but can't use wyldwood teleporting and need to stay way from them too), they pack more punch (but are more fragile) and they are cheaper too.

• Bundo Whalebiter: A Kraken-eater Mega-Gargant mercenary available to all Order factions. Taking him uses up your entire ally points allowance and he ignores any Behemoth or Hero limitations. A big terrifying centerpiece who can kick objectives around and instantly kill models by shoving them into his net. You can choose at the start of the Combat phase for him to fight at the end of the phase, in exchange for re-rolling failed hit rolls.

• Fyreslayers: Surprisingly useful alliance. The Fyreslayers bring a lot of Mortal Wounds to the table, especially if a Runefather or Runeson on Magmadroth is chosen. With Hearthguard Berserkers, bring a Fyerslayer hero along with them and they can eat Mortal Wounds for you, being able to resist them on a 4+.

Buying Guide

Sylvaneth is mixed in terms of unit price values. Some can be cheap, others horrendously expensive, but that's GW. A cliché recommendation would be the start collecting box.

Note that due to models coming from WFB, a box of Dryads has 16 models, so to get full use of them, you'll want two boxes giving you 3 dryad units plus 2 spare. Make these up as 3 Dryad Nymphs and 29 normal Dryads to give you full WYSIWYG flexibility of unit sizes.

Age of Sigmar Tactics Articles
General Tactics	Tactics Realm Of Battle Malign Sorcery Path to Glory Skirmish
Order	Cities of Sigmar Daughters of Khaine Fyreslayers Idoneth Deepkin Kharadron Overlords Lumineth Realm-Lords Seraphon Stormcast Eternals Sylvaneth
Chaos	Beasts Of Chaos Blades of Khorne Disciples of Tzeentch Hedonites of Slaanesh Maggotkin of Nurgle Skaven Slaves to Darkness
Death	Flesh-Eater Courts Nighthaunt Ossiarch Bonereapers Soulblight Gravelords
Destruction	Gloomspite Gitz Ogor Mawtribes Orruk Warclans Sons of Behemat
Others	Monstrous Arcanum Legends Old Rules