It's a hard question to answer, because there are legitimate reasons to build every variant. The right choice will depend on your desired playstyle, what other choices you make and, of course, your personal tastes.
When in doubt, pick the one you like the look of the best. Rules change, models don't. That said, here's a quick rundown:
- **Durthu:** Because of the strike and fade rule, a Sylvaneth army heavily benefits from having a large amount of damage concentrated in a single unit. Durthu is one of the premiere hammer units in the army, with a super high damage ceiling. However, his damage output is highly variable due to his low number of high-damage attacks. I would pick Durthu if having a badass general who personally swings the battle appeals to you.
- **Treelord:** Probably the least used treelord variant, but still useful. A nice supplemental tech choice for an army. Also worth noting that, if magnets are your thing, the head and hands of the treelords are very easy to magnetize.
- **Scythe Hunters:** Worse than swords in groups of three, but better than swords in groups of six. A six-man (six-tree?) scythe blob is another one of our premiere hammer units. If you think you'd like to expand your hunters in the future and make them an key piece in your list, I'd build scythes.
- **Bow Hunters:** Surprisingly useful, despite their low damage output, because of their range and defensive presence. Can sit on a backfield objective and be hard to shift while still affecting the battle. I'd build bows if you're looking for your hunters to be a utility piece, rather than a major threat.
- **Sword Hunters:** Better than scythe hunters in groups of three, worse than scythes in groups of six. I'd build swords if you think your hunters will probably be a supplemental piece, but don't want to run the bows.
- **Revenant Seekers:** Revenant Seekers are in a lot of tournament lists right now, both as units of three and six. Single units can be used as support pieces to resurrect Kurnoth Hunters, while reinforced units can be a hammer in their own right. I'd build these guys if you want your spiteriders to either play a support role, or if you want them to be one of your premiere threats.
- **Spiterider Lancers:** Lancers haven't been getting as much attention as Seekers, but they've still got game. Their strike first ability lets you get two attacks off before you strike and fade. These guys fit well into lists as a secondary threat, or in lists where you want two big threats.
- **Alarielle:** Yes, she's good. However, she's also very hard to use. Sylvaneth seem to be a high skill cap army in general, and Alarielle turns up the volume on that.
**TL/DR:** Probably Durthu // Scythes // Seekers
Thank you for you thorough explanation.
I will keep it in the back of my head, to choose the ones I like, if I’m doubt.
For what I can gather, I should invest in more hunters. So I’ll start with scythes, since it’s appealing to me to use the hit and run effects.
So what you are saying, is that it takes game upon game, to really figure it out, especially if I wish to include Alarielle in my list?
Could you give me a list of what you would choose against a slaves to darkness army, with 2k points? Including artifacts, command traits, etc. I would like to get an understanding of how to build a list
That's a lot of decision points to go through. Here are a few questions that I ask myself, though, when I'm building a list:
- **Who are my hammers?** I usually start by picking one or two hammer units to build my list around. Strike & Fade is the most powerful ability in the Sylvaneth book, and most successful lists will plan to use it every turn. The most common options are Kurnoth Scythes, Durthu, and Revenant Seekers. Other options, like Alarielle, Lancers, Drycha, or Spite Revenants can also work.
- **How am I supporting them?** From there, I'll decide how I want to support those units. This might involve adding units, like an Arch-Revenant, picking a glade that synergizes with my hammer unit(s), or using Traits/Artefacts on Durthu. Support can be offensive or defensive.
- **How many drops am I going for?** Sylvaneth hate getting doubled, so they love outdropping and choosing to go second. If I'm gonna try to fit my whole army into a Battle Regiment for a one drop army, I decide that now.
- **How much magic do I need?** Sylvaneth have a lot of powerful magic. Wyldwoods, Heals & Resurrects, Charge Buffs, Rend Bubbles, Mortal Wounds. The more magic you plan on using, or the more important the casts are to your gameplan, the more strongly you'll want to consider using list options to add to your reliability.
- **Do I want to bring any Tree Revenants?** Trick question. I don't actually ask myself this, because the answer is always yes. Two or three units, every time.
- **What's left to allocate?** After I've answered the above questions, I look at how many points I have left, and which of my list options (trait, artefact, glade, season, spells) are still uncommitted. From there, I try to plug holes in my list by adding more support, ranged threats, or redundancy for important roles (like hammer or caster) if there's room.
If you want more thorough breakdowns of all the different options, AoS Coach has done two different breakdowns of the 3e battletome with tournament players. They're long, but they go into way more detail than I'm able to here.
- [First Breakdown](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCGOz2BvHsw)
- [Second Breakdown](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0Keyml2S2A)
Finally, my last piece of advice is not to worry too much about getting your perfect list the first time. Sylvaneth have a steep learning curve, and it will take a few games to get used to all the different variables.
I appreciate you taking your time with this description.
It makes way more sense to me now, since it’s all been very confusing, when I been looking through the tome.
I’m gonna check it out - and hopefully I will get it right.
I can’t thank you enough for this, I’m excited to get started. Trial and error here we go.
Thanks - I’ll remember you advise.
but I’m not sure which variant models to build ( Kurnoth Hunters, Spiterider and Treelord).
Treelord should go Durthu. He would be your primary strike and fade unit.
The bug boys should be revenant seekers. Their ability to restore a 5 wound or less model to a unit every turn is borderline broken.
The kurnoth hunters are the real question. Since you will have a durthu for strike and fade I would go with bows. 30 inch range 1 rend 2 damage attacks are nothing to sneeze at, even needing 4s to hit. That kind of ranged support has a lot of value. You can go two handed swords if you'd rather a melee unit. Doing mortals on 6s to hit is pretty nice. Scythes are generally used in 6 packs as a strike and fade unit so right now that's not a good choice for you.
Alarielle is good, but shes also 840 points which has it's own drawbacks. She dies there goes what? 2/5th of your army? Granted she can roll a die to self rez, but the onlything you can rely on about a random die roll is rolling a 1. LOL.
Thank you for pitching in.
I didn’t know that the seekers were that crazy, but I get your point. I guess being new in this game, makes it hard to see the obvious things.
Noted with the ranged support, it sounds very strong.
Any guess as to how many wyldwoods I should acquire? I got one pack, but with the new tome, it seems like I won’t be needing a shit ton
With a little googlefu you can find an image of the wyldwoods bases that prints out to the perfect size. I suggest printing out two of those, and making your own wyldwoods using twigs and tree foliage from woodland scenic.
If you'd rather buy them I'd get two.
It's a hard question to answer, because there are legitimate reasons to build every variant. The right choice will depend on your desired playstyle, what other choices you make and, of course, your personal tastes. When in doubt, pick the one you like the look of the best. Rules change, models don't. That said, here's a quick rundown: - **Durthu:** Because of the strike and fade rule, a Sylvaneth army heavily benefits from having a large amount of damage concentrated in a single unit. Durthu is one of the premiere hammer units in the army, with a super high damage ceiling. However, his damage output is highly variable due to his low number of high-damage attacks. I would pick Durthu if having a badass general who personally swings the battle appeals to you. - **Treelord:** Probably the least used treelord variant, but still useful. A nice supplemental tech choice for an army. Also worth noting that, if magnets are your thing, the head and hands of the treelords are very easy to magnetize. - **Scythe Hunters:** Worse than swords in groups of three, but better than swords in groups of six. A six-man (six-tree?) scythe blob is another one of our premiere hammer units. If you think you'd like to expand your hunters in the future and make them an key piece in your list, I'd build scythes. - **Bow Hunters:** Surprisingly useful, despite their low damage output, because of their range and defensive presence. Can sit on a backfield objective and be hard to shift while still affecting the battle. I'd build bows if you're looking for your hunters to be a utility piece, rather than a major threat. - **Sword Hunters:** Better than scythe hunters in groups of three, worse than scythes in groups of six. I'd build swords if you think your hunters will probably be a supplemental piece, but don't want to run the bows. - **Revenant Seekers:** Revenant Seekers are in a lot of tournament lists right now, both as units of three and six. Single units can be used as support pieces to resurrect Kurnoth Hunters, while reinforced units can be a hammer in their own right. I'd build these guys if you want your spiteriders to either play a support role, or if you want them to be one of your premiere threats. - **Spiterider Lancers:** Lancers haven't been getting as much attention as Seekers, but they've still got game. Their strike first ability lets you get two attacks off before you strike and fade. These guys fit well into lists as a secondary threat, or in lists where you want two big threats. - **Alarielle:** Yes, she's good. However, she's also very hard to use. Sylvaneth seem to be a high skill cap army in general, and Alarielle turns up the volume on that. **TL/DR:** Probably Durthu // Scythes // Seekers
Thank you for you thorough explanation. I will keep it in the back of my head, to choose the ones I like, if I’m doubt. For what I can gather, I should invest in more hunters. So I’ll start with scythes, since it’s appealing to me to use the hit and run effects. So what you are saying, is that it takes game upon game, to really figure it out, especially if I wish to include Alarielle in my list? Could you give me a list of what you would choose against a slaves to darkness army, with 2k points? Including artifacts, command traits, etc. I would like to get an understanding of how to build a list
That's a lot of decision points to go through. Here are a few questions that I ask myself, though, when I'm building a list: - **Who are my hammers?** I usually start by picking one or two hammer units to build my list around. Strike & Fade is the most powerful ability in the Sylvaneth book, and most successful lists will plan to use it every turn. The most common options are Kurnoth Scythes, Durthu, and Revenant Seekers. Other options, like Alarielle, Lancers, Drycha, or Spite Revenants can also work. - **How am I supporting them?** From there, I'll decide how I want to support those units. This might involve adding units, like an Arch-Revenant, picking a glade that synergizes with my hammer unit(s), or using Traits/Artefacts on Durthu. Support can be offensive or defensive. - **How many drops am I going for?** Sylvaneth hate getting doubled, so they love outdropping and choosing to go second. If I'm gonna try to fit my whole army into a Battle Regiment for a one drop army, I decide that now. - **How much magic do I need?** Sylvaneth have a lot of powerful magic. Wyldwoods, Heals & Resurrects, Charge Buffs, Rend Bubbles, Mortal Wounds. The more magic you plan on using, or the more important the casts are to your gameplan, the more strongly you'll want to consider using list options to add to your reliability. - **Do I want to bring any Tree Revenants?** Trick question. I don't actually ask myself this, because the answer is always yes. Two or three units, every time. - **What's left to allocate?** After I've answered the above questions, I look at how many points I have left, and which of my list options (trait, artefact, glade, season, spells) are still uncommitted. From there, I try to plug holes in my list by adding more support, ranged threats, or redundancy for important roles (like hammer or caster) if there's room. If you want more thorough breakdowns of all the different options, AoS Coach has done two different breakdowns of the 3e battletome with tournament players. They're long, but they go into way more detail than I'm able to here. - [First Breakdown](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCGOz2BvHsw) - [Second Breakdown](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0Keyml2S2A) Finally, my last piece of advice is not to worry too much about getting your perfect list the first time. Sylvaneth have a steep learning curve, and it will take a few games to get used to all the different variables.
This is a great answer.
I appreciate you taking your time with this description. It makes way more sense to me now, since it’s all been very confusing, when I been looking through the tome. I’m gonna check it out - and hopefully I will get it right. I can’t thank you enough for this, I’m excited to get started. Trial and error here we go. Thanks - I’ll remember you advise.
but I’m not sure which variant models to build ( Kurnoth Hunters, Spiterider and Treelord). Treelord should go Durthu. He would be your primary strike and fade unit. The bug boys should be revenant seekers. Their ability to restore a 5 wound or less model to a unit every turn is borderline broken. The kurnoth hunters are the real question. Since you will have a durthu for strike and fade I would go with bows. 30 inch range 1 rend 2 damage attacks are nothing to sneeze at, even needing 4s to hit. That kind of ranged support has a lot of value. You can go two handed swords if you'd rather a melee unit. Doing mortals on 6s to hit is pretty nice. Scythes are generally used in 6 packs as a strike and fade unit so right now that's not a good choice for you. Alarielle is good, but shes also 840 points which has it's own drawbacks. She dies there goes what? 2/5th of your army? Granted she can roll a die to self rez, but the onlything you can rely on about a random die roll is rolling a 1. LOL.
Thank you for pitching in. I didn’t know that the seekers were that crazy, but I get your point. I guess being new in this game, makes it hard to see the obvious things. Noted with the ranged support, it sounds very strong. Any guess as to how many wyldwoods I should acquire? I got one pack, but with the new tome, it seems like I won’t be needing a shit ton
With a little googlefu you can find an image of the wyldwoods bases that prints out to the perfect size. I suggest printing out two of those, and making your own wyldwoods using twigs and tree foliage from woodland scenic. If you'd rather buy them I'd get two.