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I've been working on some Sylvaneth lists to try to prioritize my painting and keep coming back to variations on the following:

Battalions: Household (20), Gnarlroot Wargrove (80)

Leaders: Spirit of Durthu (400), Treeman Ancient (300), Branchwych (100)

Battleline: 5 Tree-Revenants (100), 30 Dryads (360), 20 Dryads (240)

Units: 3 Kurnoth Hunters w/ Greatbows (180)

TOTAL: 1780

There are a couple of options for the remaining points. I could take a unit of Sisters of the Thorn, or I could take a Loremaster of Hoeth/Skink Starpriest plus another 10 dryads (for 2 units of 30), a unit of 3 tree-kin or a second branchwych.

Another option would be to cut the dryad units down to 20/10, giving me 460 points. That'd get me either two more units of Kurnoths (probably one bow one sword) plus a 100 point caster or Drycha plus a unit of Kurnoths (or a 100 point caster leaving me with an awkward 80 points.)


Beyond the army configuration questions, there are some options available with respect to command traits and artefacts. I know I want my Branchwych to be an aoe bomb with the Silverwood Circlet and The Reaping. Combined with her own spell, I plan to hide her behind one of my behemoths to get her close and then she can unleash with her AOE mortal wound spells.

Beyond that, the most obvious combination is the Oaken Armor plus Gnarled Warrior. I have two battalions so I can dish out armor to both of the big trees. Most likely I'd make the Ancient the General to get access to his command ability. Thus both trees will have 2+ saves likely rerolling 1's and the general ignoring rend 1.

As far as the army configuration options go, I'm really quite torn. The Sisters of the Thorn spell is fantastic. I can throw it onto either a big unit of dryads or one of my treelords thus ensuring a better rerolled save plus some serious mortal wound generation. A unit of dryads near a wyldwood with mystic shield would be boasting a 3+ rerollable save that generates mortal wounds on a save roll of 4+. That said, the Sisters are quite expensive.

A Loremaster of Hoeth is much cheaper and his spell should turn the Spirit of Durthu into an absolute beast in melee, but Spirit is probably the only good target so this may not be the best choice. Skink Starpriest is also cheaper, and its spell provides a nice debuff that should stack especially well with the tree stomp attack. If I get the Starpriest, I wonder if Briarsheath might be better on the trees as stacking -2 or even -3 to hit would be extremely nasty.

If I decide to get a second Branchwych I'd probably use it as a backup Regrowth, focusing on using it for Mystic Shield, Arcane Bolt, and/or the Gnarlwood spell.

I'd love to hear any thoughts people have on these variations.


That said, my main question is whether or not this list is fundamentally a "TFG" type list. It's obviously a pretty hard/competitive list. If it is a total TFG list, what can I do to tone it down? Maybe swap the Spirit of Durthu for Drycha (plus whatever else with the extra points)? Take weaker combinations of artefacts? In a perfect world, I'd like to develop versions of this core list that can cover a wide variety of situations ranging from friendly to competitive to "hardcore". I don't think I'd use any variation of this list for a "soft" game, though. Any thoughts/advice would be appreciated.

I'd say that, in the eyes of some, 3 units of greatbows may be seen as TFG, swap them for scythes/swords and I think it would be fine. Maybe gimp you a bit and get spite-revenants, which don't really work well without the formation.

Yeah, I'm pretty unlikely to field 3 units of Kurnoths anyway as my general preference is to put some more dryads on the board. If I did field 3 units though I'd almost certainly go 2 bows 1 sword or scythe as all the magic plus verdant blast plus two units of greatbows seems like plenty of sniping, and I kinda question the efficiency of greatbow Kurnoths at shooting things that aren't squishy characters.

Honestly though, to me the ridiculously tanky trees and or stacking hit debuffs feel more OP to me than Kurnoths, although I do understand that greatbow Kurnoths do really piss some people off.

It's competitive but wether it's TFG or not depends on what you do with the last points, as well as your local meta. For a full-on tourney list (TFG) get the loremaster plus 100 points reserved for your wych to summon a balewind vortex, which will giver her +1 to cast, double the range of her aoe, and make her unable to be in melee. For a more casual build instead go with a second wych and some more dryads.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
It's competitive but wether it's TFG or not depends on what you do with the last points, as well as your local meta. For a full-on tourney list (TFG) get the loremaster plus 100 points reserved for your wych to summon a balewind vortex, which will giver her +1 to cast, double the range of her aoe, and make her unable to be in melee. For a more casual build instead go with a second wych and some more dryads.

Yeah, balewind vortex would be pretty gross, although it would make the branchwych visible to shooting. I could see there being situations where you wouldn't want to set up the vortex, in which case I wonder if the skink might be a better choice over the loremaster as you could always summon in a random seraphon unit if the vortex seems like a bad idea. I could see summoning a unit of 10 Saurus Guard being useful in a pinch.

I think Hunters with bows are not that strong really. Their damage output just isn't enough to finish enough treats to be worth more than the melee type.
Yes against some badly build armies with a single or 2 low HP key characters that do buffing they would be much stronger and that player would not like you... but against a BALANCED list they're not that impressive.

PS Alarielle is a BEAST, her spell has been destroying my enemies in my last game (OK I did roll 10 2x so it's not like I rolled average), I'd really consider her.

Meelee hunters need at least two rounds to get into the fight. Kurnoth can soften targets from the get go and put some serious ostigation in quite a few armies.

Yes but after those 2 rounds they also fight in enemy phase (when in melee ofc) and have about double the damage output per phase.

Kurnoth Bow Hunters are OP, and better than the melee variants which are also OP but not as much. Its been discussed before; the math backs it up, the theory backs it up, and subsequent testing/tournaments have seen that backed up in reality. Its all been discussed previously so I won't go into detail here, but in summary:

The key difference is the interaction with Wyldwoods and to a lesser extent double-turns. Melee Kurnoth have to go out and meet the enemy, while ranged Kurnoth can camp in a Wyldwood and make the enemy come to them. On turns they charge, Kurnoth also lose their re-rollable save, which is extra beneficial for the ranged Kurnoth who are more or less guaranteed to have cover. Finally, double-turns give an edge to shooting units in general.

Also worth keeping in mind that basically nothing else in the Sylvaneth arsenal replicates what Kurnoths with bows do, while melee Kurnoths are redundant with a bunch of other things.

swarmofseals wrote:
Also worth keeping in mind that basically nothing else in the Sylvaneth arsenal replicates what Kurnoths with bows do, while melee Kurnoths are redundant with a bunch of other things.

Well on this I agree and it's the reason I use a few bows.. for those enemies stupid enough to bring a single or 2 crucial 5 wound hero's and then see their army fall apart once it's removed.