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I'm new to Age of Sigmar. So far I have only been painting Warhammer Fantasy and AoS models, but I'm moving towards playing the tabletop game. I really, really like the Wood Elves and would like to play them. I guess the way to do this is to have a Wanderer/Sylvaneth allied force so I can have my elves and my tree spirits in the same army? But I'm not really familiar with AoS and was hoping I could get some advice for how to handle this. The units I have so far are:

Eternal Guard (10 models)
Sisters of the Thorn (5 models)
Dryads (16 models)
Treelord Ancient
2x Branchwraith
Spellsinger
Naestra and Arahan on giant hawk
Orion
Glade Guard (20 models)

Where do I go from here? What would you all recommend I buy next to shape this towards a useable army? What even is a good Wood Elf force in AoS? Any advice is greatly appreciated.

This isn't a fool's errand, is it? Do I have to go with one or the other, either elves OR tree spirits, in this game? I really, really want to play something approximating the Warhammer Fantasy Wood Elves in Age of Sigmar, since they've been my favorite faction since forever, and they're the ones I've been collecting and painting (but never actually played), but if there's no way to make it work... hmm.

In terms of matched play, it is a fool's errand. Sylvaneth don't need the elves, and the wood elves have about 4 units left, none of which are particularly amazing.

The tree-spirits you have would make decent start of sylvaneth army, but of the wood elf units you have, only eternal guard and sisters of thorn are usable in matched play (everything else has been relegated to legacy/no longer supported status).

One possible light at the far end of the tunnel is Kurnothi. They've appeared thus far in one Underworld Warband and appear to have a Kurnothi Aelf in the new upcoming Warhammer Quest game. This might hint that in the future GW is going to adapt them into the main core game, but it might not. Right now there are only tempting hints and even if they do there's no saying if they'll be their own army (less likely); a merging of Sylvaneth with new aelf-like units (for which you might use your current ones as counts-as); if they are going to bring some of the wood elf units out of Cities and back into syvlaneth or add the Kurnothi into the wood elf block in Cities.

Basically its a big tempting hook of something that might happen, but there's no telling what, if anything will happen nor any timescale.


I do agree if you want to use those models you have to (sadly) make a choice to focus on one side or the other and build that into an army. Noting that if you go the elf side you'll want to look at Cities of Sigmar outside of the old WE units, since Cities is designed to work with multiple forces/races unless you've a big block (like the Dark Elf army block which is almost all there barring a handful of models).

What's your play environment like? Are you playing with a group of friends, or in a store, or planning to attend tournaments?

 Da Boss wrote:
What's your play environment like? Are you playing with a group of friends, or in a store, or planning to attend tournaments?

Local play environment is an LGS that you can't come in and play games at unless you have been vaccinated against Covid-19. I have, but few of my potential opponents can say the same. Hopefully that number will grow moving forward. I've not yet had my first game of AoS besides a brief demo with Sigmarines, so going to tournaments -- assuming that tournaments are even happening -- seems premature.

In that case, there's a good chance your opponents might not be keen on you bringing units not allowed in matched play. Even if they are worse for your army than legal units.

That's just a hunch though, and there's really no way to know without just asking potential opponents. You just need to be aware that there is a risk that you might not be able to use these units sometimes.

Yeah, sadly, it seems like building lists for Sylvaneth as a default and then asking opponents if they mind doing a combined arms game would be the best way to go forward.

I hesitate to always mention this, but the onepagerules version of AoS (it's a fan made ruleset) has Sylvaneth and Wanderers combined into one Wood Elf army. But not a lot of people play that game and it might not be to your taste. Free to download if you feel like it though.

Unfortunately, with what you have and what is currently in the game? It's a fool's errand for anything Matched Play.

Sorry for the bad news. Wood Elves are a particular (no pun intended) thorny subject for myself as my 15 Waywatchers and Waystalker are nonexistent at this point, my 100 Glade Guard are dead, and it's honestly easier to just make sure people know "Wood Elves are a dead army and Cities of Sigmar literally cannot help you with this if you did not have tons of Eternal Guard".

Moving off the growing hate I've nurtured for years, Sylvaneth are a good possible solution for you.

Sylvaneth allow for you to actively ally in Wanderers currently without needing to ally in "Cities of Sigmar". It's still restricted to the units available(Nomad Prince, Wild Riders, Eternal Guard, Sisters of the Watch, Sisters of the Thorn, and Wildwood Rangers) but it at least allows for you to pick a Battletome and run with it.

I'd highly suggest grabbing at least one if not two of the Sylvaneth Warcry bundles if you can find them for a good deal. Kurnoth Hunters and Tree-Revenants are great especially if obtained at a discount.

 Marsyas wrote:

Eternal Guard (10 models)
Sisters of the Thorn (5 models)
Dryads (16 models)
Treelord Ancient
2x Branchwraith
Spellsinger
Naestra and Arahan on giant hawk
Orion
Glade Guard (20 models)

Pick Cities of Sigmar.

Choose The Living City.

You can directly field Eternal Guard and Sisters of the Thorn.

Spellsinger and other character can count as Mages/Nomad Prince/etc

Glade Guard counts as Shadow Warriors.

1 every 4 units can be Sylvaneth: field the Dryads/Treelord/Branchwraith.

Done.

SU-152 wrote:

 Marsyas wrote:

Eternal Guard (10 models)
Sisters of the Thorn (5 models)
Dryads (16 models)
Treelord Ancient
2x Branchwraith
Spellsinger
Naestra and Arahan on giant hawk
Orion
Glade Guard (20 models)

Pick Cities of Sigmar.

Choose The Living City.

You can directly field Eternal Guard and Sisters of the Thorn.

Spellsinger and other character can count as Mages/Nomad Prince/etc

Glade Guard counts as Shadow Warriors.

1 every 4 units can be Sylvaneth: field the Dryads/Treelord/Branchwraith.

Done.

And after that?
Find out how the people you're going to play with feel about
1) Legends units https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/BP9wl8XLLanCsH7V.pdf
2) The mercenary rules out of the Generals Handbook 2020 (or is it 2019?)
Because if their not opposed to these things you can access Orion & such via making them mercs.

And if Legends are on the table you could always form this force as "Order" or "Aelves" - though doing it that way would be sub-optimal vs a Living Cities list + Allies/Mercs.

Running them as Order or Aelves is just about as effective as Living City counts-as Shadowblades/Wanderers/whatever, to be honest.

Cities of Sigmar works great if you're basically trying to do a few specific factions. It doesn't work when you try to theme them too hard, thanks to the aura mechanics tending to be keyworded to subfactions rather than superfactions.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Running them as Order or Aelves is just about as effective as Living City counts-as Shadowblades/Wanderers/whatever, to be honest./quote]

I disagree.
Living Cities gives more benefits than just "Order" would. And since "Aelves" (though possible) would give nothing at all, LC or Order would be magnitudes better than zero....

ccs wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Running them as Order or Aelves is just about as effective as Living City counts-as Shadowblades/Wanderers/whatever, to be honest./quote]

I disagree.
Living Cities gives more benefits than just "Order" would. And since "Aelves" (though possible) would give nothing at all, LC or Order would be magnitudes better than zero....

Agreed, living city from cities of sigmar is the best bet.

I suppose if I happen to build a tree-spirit focused list, the way to go would be Sylvaneth with Wanderer allies rather than Living City with Sylvaneth?

(Just got my hands on Durthu and am painting him up next, because he is awesome.)

 Marsyas wrote:
I suppose if I happen to build a tree-spirit focused list, the way to go would be Sylvaneth with Wanderer allies rather than Living City with Sylvaneth?

(Just got my hands on Durthu and am painting him up next, because he is awesome.)

That depends upon how many pts worth of non-sylvanth stuff your trying to get onto the table.
If you read the rules you'll see that you can only include x pts of allies/mercs, dependant upon the size of game your playing.

Living City allows you to get a (potentially) larger # of Sylvanth pts directly into the main army as 1 in 4 units can be Sylvanth. And you still have the full ally/merc cap to use to squeeze things like Orion into the list.