Starting a Sylvaneth army? Whats good? How they play?

Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:

No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.

If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

**Totalwar1402**

I decided with the new release incoming, which I think looks really cool and me being completely and utterly burnt out on Space Marines (2 massive HH legion armies) that I might dabble in a Sylvaneth army. Never collected fantasy before and they have some really nice models anyway.

Roughly speaking how many units do you need for a fair sized Sylvaneth army? How does the army play?

Are the woods basically a must have option for the army or are they not necessary?

Do they work as their own force or do you have to ally them with Stormcast or Wood Elves (Wanderers?) for them to function?

**Sete**

Wait a bit for now since they are getting a new release later this month I think?
I might be wrong tho.

**Kanluwen**

Totalwar1402 wrote:
I decided with the new release incoming, which I think looks really cool and me being completely and utterly burnt out on Space Marines (2 massive HH legion armies) that I might dabble in a Sylvaneth army. Never collected fantasy before and they have some really nice models anyway.

Roughly speaking how many units do you need for a fair sized Sylvaneth army? How does the army play?

Are the woods basically a must have option for the army or are they not necessary?

Do they work as their own force or do you have to ally them with Stormcast or Wood Elves (Wanderers?) for them to function?

There's not really such a thing as "Allies" in Age of Sigmar. You don't need to add anything beyond just Sylvaneth if you don't want to.

In regards to the Sylvaneth Woods? It helps to get a few of them, if only because your Treeman Ancients can cast spells and have an ability that affects Wyldwoods--and all of your other units have benefits/get benefits from being near Wyldwoods.

"Fair sized Sylvaneth army" is going to depend on what you want to accomplish.
Do you just want a lone Treelord with some Dryads accompanying him?
Do you want a Branchwraith to be able to summon more Dryads?

In either case, you might want to get the "Forest Spirit Warhost" It contains 3x Treelords, a Branchwraith(Finecast), and 32 Dryads.

It's one of their 'box bundle' army sets that saves you a huuuuge chunk. MSRP of all the items is $280, the set is $225 so saves you $55.
Strike that. Had missed you're in the UK where the set is no longer listed.

IF you can--try to find one at a shop. It's a good box with good savings. If you can't find one?
A good 'starting' list would be:
Treelord built as a Treelord Ancient(this lets you have a Wizard and a Monster in one)
A pair of Dryad boxes
A box of the Citadel Woods or the Citadel Wyldwoods bundle(which doesn't really save you anything I think, but nets you 3x Wyldwoods which is about right).

That gets you a Wizard/Monster, 32 Dryads(they are a minimum unit size of 5, so you can do a single big unit of 32 or 6 units of 5 or 5 units of 6 or 2 units of 16 or whatever combination you want that fits those parameters), and three Wyldwoods to play around with.

I would do the Dryads in two units of 15, then use the two leftover Dryads to kitbash a pair of Branchwraiths personally.

**Totalwar1402**

Yeah I wish they still had that bundle. Could make a good saving.

I am probs going to get three citadel woods as it's cheaper from my flgs.

Iam getting the army with a mind towards adding Alarielle and co when they come out.

Was considering maybe adding some Stormcast to represent the ones who fight with them in the campaign. Hallowed Knights? But for now I d like to start on the tree folk.

**MongooseMatt**

Totalwar1402 wrote:

Roughly speaking how many units do you need for a fair sized Sylvaneth army? How does the army play?

Are the woods basically a must have option for the army or are they not necessary?

I have been playing the Sylvaneth quite a bit in our Realmgate Wars campaign recently (in fact, just posted a battle report with them: https://ttgamingdiary.wordpress.com/2016/05/31/battle-report-breach-the-line/ - got a few more if you are really interested).

The Dryads are solid enough, perhaps dishing it out a little better than they can take it. Two units of 16 will give you a good base to start from. Add a Branchwraith for some magical support - don't expect her to win battles alone for you (and she will get carved up in close combat), but the magic is nice, and if she is close to Sylvaneth Woods she can summon Dryads to replace losses.

A couple of Citadel Woods to make a Sylvaneth Wood is nice, but not essential.

If you are going for one Treelord... you know, I would not make it an Ancient

He is a wizard, sure, which is nice, but you will tend to find him lacking in combat - he is a bit old and creaky

With three Treelords, I would go with two normal and one Ancient,

And that force, three Treelords, a Branchwraith and 32 Dryads is a perfectly viable force. Quite easy to paint too.

If you wanted to go out on a limb (tree joke right there), consider Treekin. They may be about to be 'replaced' with a new unit, but the old models and Warscroll will remain perfectly reasonable (I'll carry on using them), and 3-4 Treekin are a nice solid little assault force.

**Totalwar1402**

Really, just two boxes of Dryads? N that would get me the formation, neat.

I take it the new unit is the half elf spirit ones?

Is it just them and Alarielle that are rumoured to be coming out?

Cool battle report BTW. I was just reading about that particular fight today in the novel actually.

**thekingofkings**

Kanluwen wrote:
Totalwar1402 wrote:
I decided with the new release incoming, which I think looks really cool and me being completely and utterly burnt out on Space Marines (2 massive HH legion armies) that I might dabble in a Sylvaneth army. Never collected fantasy before and they have some really nice models anyway.

Roughly speaking how many units do you need for a fair sized Sylvaneth army? How does the army play?

Are the woods basically a must have option for the army or are they not necessary?

Do they work as their own force or do you have to ally them with Stormcast or Wood Elves (Wanderers?) for them to function?

There's not really such a thing as "Allies" in Age of Sigmar. You don't need to add anything beyond just Sylvaneth if you don't want to.

In regards to the Sylvaneth Woods? It helps to get a few of them, if only because your Treeman Ancients can cast spells and have an ability that affects Wyldwoods--and all of your other units have benefits/get benefits from being near Wyldwoods.

"Fair sized Sylvaneth army" is going to depend on what you want to accomplish.
Do you just want a lone Treelord with some Dryads accompanying him?
Do you want a Branchwraith to be able to summon more Dryads?

In either case, you might want to get the "Forest Spirit Warhost" It contains 3x Treelords, a Branchwraith(Finecast), and 32 Dryads.

It's one of their 'box bundle' army sets that saves you a huuuuge chunk. MSRP of all the items is $280, the set is $225 so saves you $55.
Strike that. Had missed you're in the UK where the set is no longer listed.

IF you can--try to find one at a shop. It's a good box with good savings. If you can't find one?
A good 'starting' list would be:
Treelord built as a Treelord Ancient(this lets you have a Wizard and a Monster in one)
A pair of Dryad boxes
A box of the Citadel Woods or the Citadel Wyldwoods bundle(which doesn't really save you anything I think, but nets you 3x Wyldwoods which is about right).

That gets you a Wizard/Monster, 32 Dryads(they are a minimum unit size of 5, so you can do a single big unit of 32 or 6 units of 5 or 5 units of 6 or 2 units of 16 or whatever combination you want that fits those parameters), and three Wyldwoods to play around with.

I would do the Dryads in two units of 15, then use the two leftover Dryads to kitbash a pair of Branchwraiths personally.

For some reason I have found using 4 units of 12 to be most effective in dryads with a branchwraith thrown in with each unit.

**Kanluwen**

Totalwar1402 wrote:
Really, just two boxes of Dryads? N that would get me the formation, neat.

Something to keep in mind regarding Dryads is that Branchwraiths are able to summon more Dryads using one of their spells on a Wyldwood.

I take it the new unit is the half elf spirit ones?

Is it just them and Alarielle that are rumoured to be coming out?

Long story short; we don't know.

Treekin were, previously, a kind of "Treeman Light". Their background was that they were the souls of deceased Elves having animated themselves a body out of woodland debris to go forth into battle.
We do have a name for the "Half Elf/Half Tree" and that is the "Tree Revenants". It's led me to speculate, wildly, that this is a revamping of the Treekin concept and blending in an element of the now gone character "Orion".

Automatically Appended Next Post:

thekingofkings wrote:

For some reason I have found using 4 units of 12 to be most effective in dryads with a branchwraith thrown in with each unit.

Are you trying to say that you run Branchwraiths alongside of the units? Because you can't "join" characters to units in AoS.

**thekingofkings**

Kanluwen wrote:
Totalwar1402 wrote:
Really, just two boxes of Dryads? N that would get me the formation, neat.

Something to keep in mind regarding Dryads is that Branchwraiths are able to summon more Dryads using one of their spells on a Wyldwood.

I take it the new unit is the half elf spirit ones?

Is it just them and Alarielle that are rumoured to be coming out?

Long story short; we don't know.

Treekin were, previously, a kind of "Treeman Light". Their background was that they were the souls of deceased Elves having animated themselves a body out of woodland debris to go forth into battle.
We do have a name for the "Half Elf/Half Tree" and that is the "Tree Revenants". It's led me to speculate, wildly, that this is a revamping of the Treekin concept and blending in an element of the now gone character "Orion".

Automatically Appended Next Post:

thekingofkings wrote:

For some reason I have found using 4 units of 12 to be most effective in dryads with a branchwraith thrown in with each unit.

Are you trying to say that you run Branchwraiths alongside of the units? Because you can't "join" characters to units in AoS.

Basically they are there to charge alongside, and get caught up in the melee.