Ethan gets to the root of the Sylvaneth faction and covers the elementree traits and enhancements that’ll help you decide what to take in your first games with them.
I’ll leaf now…
Introduction
Rumours of our demise have been vastly overstated! Welcome to the Sylvaneth Faction review, we’re going to try not to miss the forest for the trees but it is probably pertinent to mention up top that this index has been pretty broadly panned by community figures and its regular players. With that in mind, we’ll stay realistic here and point out where things aren’t great but this will largely focus on what Sylvaneth still can do rather than dwelling below that point.
Playstyle
Sylvaneth in 3rd edition were known for a guerrilla playstyle focused around using strike and fade to leverage high value units against single targets and then move back to safety before reprisals could occur. This relied on a combination of movement tricks and charge buffs and was heavily dice gated and reflected in the points values of sylvaneth units. Some aspects of this play pattern remain but key changes to the way the army’s battle traits function have meant that in 4th edition we’ll be a more take-and-hold faction, relying on expanding areas of control through a combination of magic and high threat range units to threaten from a castle.
Sylvaneth have excellent tools for completing battle tactics with well planned play, however we’ve lost some durability in the form of recursion since last edition meaning that, despite the lethality of the game coming down overall, you’ll have to play smart with your resources lest deforestation come for your troops.
Battle Traits
As mentioned above, key changes have occurred for the Sylvaneth battle traits, most specifically the timing of the Strike and Fade ability moving from immediately after a unit has fought to the end of the turn. Constraints including being wholly within 6” of an Awakened Wyldwood (henceforth AWW) and being in combat at the end of the turn produced mass outcry amongst the Sylvaneth player base and I can happily announce after playing some games with this that it is horribly awkward and a real pain in the ass to use, but very much useful and fine for reasons that we’ll go into shortly.
Walk the Hidden Paths is largely the same in flavour with a slew of major differences, the inclusion of the Core keyword means that sylvaneth units may not move into range of an AWW and then teleport afterwards. You start there or you don’t teleport. This is largely alleviated by the removal of the requirement that woods be placed outside of 3” of your own units, making placement a fair whack easier if you’re able to get the spell off. Additionally, the requirement that you not be in combat to use this limits some popular 3rd edition uses of the spell and means that you’ll be relying on Strike and Fade to “rescue” units tied up in combat. Endless growth is cool, extra cool when combined with rally, that’s the review, back to the fun stuff.
Battle Formations
I did say back to the fun stuff but the Battle Formations are a real sore point for Sylvaneth. None of the four stand out as particularly powerful and often double up on effects we can access through other means. This does make for a force multiplier in some cases but the majority of the time it leaves you wanting something a little more thematic or impactful to support the different playstyles available to the faction.
Lords of the Clan healing monsters is nice but Treelords becoming heroes, even with the battle formation allowances has made the old Oakenbrow style rather stymied. Expect Alarielle, Durthu and Friends in this subfaction.
Forest Folk is for all of the dryad lovers in the audience. Ever wanted to run 120+ dryads? This is the subfaction for you. Also, I hope you brought bandaids. Jokes aside, this feels like a miss from GW, who must have had concerns about how Kurnoth hunters would work within the subfaction and instead made something that is for no-one.
Outcasts Despite the name this doesn’t interact at all with Drycha and her spooky cohort which is thematically a bit of a miss but, on the table, makes this my personal favourite of the four options. It’s nothing huge and exciting but singular tree revs/cavalry/Kurnoth Hunters being able to contest your opponent’s monsters and knowing you’ll always win the Primary battle in a faction which cannot afford to commit multiple resources to a single objective is plainly powerful in a way which isn’t entirely intuitive until you get it on the table.
Last is Free Spirits which allows you to give run and charge to a unit of cavalry. Belthanos does this on his warscroll and if you’re not running Belthanos I’d be shocked. Sadly a bit redundant.
Spells
This is where it gets a bit spicy. Sylvaneth rely on being near AWW for ALL of their allegiance abilities. I personally have found our warscrolls to be strong enough that not having access to these all of the time is ok, but it is completely galling that we have one way in the entire army to summon Wyldwoods and it can be stopped by enemy spellcasters.
Treesong summons woods. WW 18” is a fine distance on the new maps and the ability to attempt to do this in your opponent’s turn makes it more achievable than in the past, especially with the unlimited tag. The trees themselves are pretty good, there is much maligning online that the trees can be killed, but to push back on this sentiment slightly, summoning 8-12 wounds, with a 4+ save, on a 6+ CV that your opponent then needs to chew through is not a small number of wounds over the course of the game. Opponents are forced to make meaningful choices about targeting your woods or your units and if they focus the units, abilities from various warscrolls make the units inside said woods far more powerful. Additionally, the new terrain maps make pre-planning of placement far easier. No longer the days of travelling for an event only to find that the TO was a bit overzealous with terrain and your army was unable to play, though the loss of overgrown terrain does mean that wizards are borderline mandatory in the army this edition and a great deal of your casting will be spent on making new woods.
The other two spells in the pack are relatively straightforward, providing a much appreciated rend bonus and anti-horde spell to the army. They’re fine and a nice tertiary casting option if you don’t have trees or manifestations you’d prefer to be casting.
On the note of manifestations, they Sylvaneth lore is… Ok? The Gladewyrm is a power pick that carries the manifestations while the skullroot is niche and the spiteswarm more a bonus than anything. I will say as one of the many who suffered at the hands of the spiteswarm’s 2+ in 3rd edition the fact it has been so massively tuned downward and still retains the 2+ roll is pretty jokes. Good one Jimothy Workshop.
Enhancements
Heroic Traits
All three of these are solid. Spellsinger giving a nonwizard a cast is a powerful interaction with unlimited spells allowing you another chance to create an AWW while the +1 to cast on units like the Warsong Revenant is powerful in 4th. Warsinger (Choir anyone?) gives +2” movement which, while nothing mindblowing, is always excellent. Especially so in a faction with ready access to run and charge through Belthanos.
Lastly, and my personal favourite is Radiant Spirit which provides a complete spell/prayer ignore on a 3+, something I haven’t seen as an aura effect in any other faction. It goes without saying that this effect is very powerful, being able to ignore effects like -1 to hit, wound or reducing charge dice is massive and avoiding incidental mortal wounds is pleasant icing on the cake.
Artefacts
These are far less thrilling but do a job. The Seed of rebirth is nice on small support pieces but far more impactful in monster mash where Durthu standing back up at the end of the enemy combat phase allows 3-6+ points of healing before he can be targeted again. Crown of Fell Bowers requires the hero using it to be in combat but provides a very powerful +1 to wound to all units targeting the chosen unit on a 3+. With how GW internally seems to be valuing +1 to wound effects, this artefact sits behind a number of gates which may see it struggle to be used effectively, but remains powerful nonetheless. Lastly the Greenwood Gladius. Look how they massacred my boy. From Durthu’s right hand blade in 3rd to now, the Greenwood gladius is now the much-memed “roll a d3, on a 2+ inflict that many mortals.” It isn’t bad by any means but everyone who was salivating at the thought of a buffed up Durthu biffing his way through a game must have been equally disappointed by this item’s depowering.
Units
Let’s start with the best of the best. As alluded to above, the use case for Strike and Fade has changed massively, rather than slingshotting units to delete your opponent’s units and then leaving before they can do anything about it (a playstyle which was always absolutely shithouse to play against, despite the end of edition <45% win rate, and I won’t hear otherwise), Strike and Fade now exists mainly as a means to reposition, for battle tactics at times and most commonly in my experience to rescue our new, old favourite unit Kurnoth Hunters with Kurnoth Greatbows (henceforth Bows, please.) who lack the shoot in combat keyword, have 18” range now, and have – in exchange for these limitations – learned to absolutely ruin heroes whenever they damn well please. Bows require some babysitting to make work but their combination of hero sniping, pure output and synergy with the way the Allegiance traits now work make them my highlight of the index.
Without getting exhaustive, other notable standouts are Alarielle herself, who is a powerful beatstick in addition to being our best wizard. Her resurrection ability is too inconsistent to plan around, but as a listbuilding tool she synergises incredibly well with big punchy monsters such as Durthu and Belthanos. As an aside, I’ve seen far too many times statements online that due to Alarielle’s base size, she’s unable to benefit from the Allegiance abilities. You can overlap your base with a Wyldwood so long as you’re not trying to place the base on the trunk of the tree. Jesus Christ people.
My last major highlights are my personal favourites, with Belthanos playing a key role in most lists. An amazing model, and great beatstick who, despite losing his ward, still plays a key role in the army by creating an AWW from a terrain piece which cannot be destroyed. Clutch. The Lady of Vines also got a glow-up for 4th edition, with a far punchier combat profile and a better rampage which either debuffs attackers with -1 to hit or allows all sylvaneth +1 to hit a certain target. She has paid for this however in becoming a monster in a ruleset where Look Out Sir! no longer cares about wound counts and simultaneously losing wounds, leaving her at a very fragile 8 wounds, very difficult to keep alive outside of woods against popular options like Jezzails and Longstrike Crossbows. That aside, her ability to count as a Wyldwood, Ward aura and otherwise well rounded profile make her one of my favourite picks in the new edition.
Sample List
Sylvaneth
Subfaction: Forest Folk
Manifestations: Morbid Conjuration
The Lady of Vines (280)
– 20 x Dryads (220)
– 8 x The Twistweald (130)
Warsong Revenant (210)
– 5 x Tree-Revenants (110)
Drycha Hamadreth (310)
– 10 x Spite-Revenants (220)
– 8 x The Twistweald (130)
– 8 x The Twistweald (130)
– 10 x Gossamid Archers (240)
1980/2000
Thanks to our patron A..k who suggested this list.
You can get your Spite-Revenants or Twistweald up to rend 4. The focus of the list is turning these crappy, cheap units into potential hard hitters.
Twistweald have really decent damage for their points and you can potentially triple stack their negative charge effect.
20 Dryads to be a pain to shift with 5++, 5 casts, Drycha is a strong force multiplier for the Twistweald and Spites,
The Gossamids are for hero sniping and screening, but can also get all the buffs onto them shoot, and then charge, for a respectable 14 damage into a 4+ save average.
You’ve also got a decent amount of shooting across this list
