The Sylvaneth did pretty well in Age of Sigmar, with the addition of a number of new kits, as well as two Underworlds warbands that got Warcry rules. They’ve seen competitive success, often with warbands built around the very mean Kurnoth Hunters with some Dryad or Tree-Revenant chaff. They’re now getting a Warcry-specific box of very nice models combining Dryads and Revenants. Many thanks to Games Workshop for providing us an advanced copy of Briar & Bone for review.
Table of Contents
Abilities and Reactions
The Twistweald reaction and abilities are almost entirely about piling more damage on your opponent or making your fighters better in melee. I like it; it very much fits the spiteful trees aesthetic.
Reaction
Mycelial Ravaging – Make this reaction when targeted by a melee attack but before dice are rolled. For each attack roll of 5+ from that attack action, allocate two damage points to the attacking fighter. This is like a reverse counter that punishes the attacker for rolling well, and is great to use if they are rolling a lot of dice and very likely to kill you. When being attacked by something with higher strength than your toughness, this is clearly mathematically better than Counter.
Abilities
Double – Flesh Piercing Talons – For the next melee attack action made by the fighter, it scores criticals on 5+. Useable by the Revenants and Dryads, with the Revenant with Harvester Blade and Dryad both having four attack dice and a reasonably high crit damage, it’s worth using on them.
Double – Voracious Swarm – Pick a visible enemy fighter within 12″ and roll a number of dice equal to this ability. For each 3+, allocate a point of damage to the enemy fighter. Useable only by your leader, if you’ve rolled a double six and there’s an enemy model just hanging on and outside of your shooting range then it’s awfully tempting…
Double – Eruption of Thorns – Roll a dice for each visible enemy fighter within 1″ of this fighter. On a 4+, allocate a number of damage points equal to half the value of this ability to that fighter. Great if you are getting surrounded, particularly by chaff, and useable by any model in the warband.
Triple – Thorned Grasp – Pick a visible enemy fighter within 3″ and roll a dice. On a 2+ allocate two damage to them, roll again and allocate damage again until you get a roll less than or equal to the previous roll. You can theoretically score ten damage points doing this, but if you do it’s probably time to buy some lottery tickets. Useable only by the Swarmsage and Spite-Revenant with Briarlash.
Triple – Devour Infection – Pick a friendly fighter within 12″ and roll a number of dice equal to this ability. For every 4+ allocate one point of damage to that fighter but add +1 attack dice to their next attack until the end of the battle round. Useable only by the leader, but potentially enough to turn one of your fighters into an absolute melee monster.
Quad – Twisted Song – Remove a number of damage points from this fighter equal to the value of this ability. This fighter can then make a bonus move or attack action.
Heroes
Swarmsage
The only hero in the warband, this is a solid fighter/wizard model with access to two abilities – Voracious Swarm to damage an enemy fighter and Devour Infection to buff a friendly model (at the cost of some health). In melee it’s no slouch with a 3″ reach 4 attack dice strength 4 2/5 attack, and a 3-7 ranged attack with 2 attack dice strength 4 3/6 damage. Move is 4, toughness is 4 and the model was 22 wounds.
For 190 points this is a bargain for a solid melee leader with two decent abilities and a ranged attack for emergencies. It qualifies for the cheaper tier of blessings, and it’s worth thinking about blessing this model if you have the spare points; Resilience or Brutality would be good choices in my opinion.
Fighters
Revenants
These come in two types, with Briarlash or Harvester Blade. The Briarlash is a reach 3″ weapon which sacrifices an attack dice and damage for reach and an extra point of strength in comparison to the Harvest Blade. It’s worth pointing out the difference, which is what tables are for.
| Average Damage vs. | T3 | T4 | T5 | T6 |
| Briarlash | 4.5 | 4.5 | 3.5 | 2.5 |
| Harvest Blade | 7.33 | 6 | 4.67 | 4.67 |
This comes down to personal preference, as the options are the same in terms of points but 3″ reach weapons really annoy your opponent if they only have 1″ reach weapons, but the Flesh Piercing Talons Double is very good on a Revenant with Harvest Blade.
With Move 4, Toughness 4 and 12 wounds and weighing in at 110 points, the Revenant is the sort of mid-level staple fighter seen in a lot of warcry factions, and it’s well priced and competitive considering the other fighters around that level.
Wardens
These come in three flavours, with Spitespear (and shield), with Guardian Halberd and with Guardian Bow. The spear and bow are 120 points, and the halberd 125. It’s worth comparing the weapons, and guess what, there’s a table below for that.
| Average Damage vs. | T2 | T3 | T4 | T5 | T6 |
| Spitespear | 6.67 | 6.67 | 5.33 | 4 | 4 |
| Guardian Halberd | 6.5 | 6.5 | 6.5 | 5 | 3.5 |
| Guardian Bow | 3.33 | 3.33 | 2.67 | 2 | 2 |
| Guardian Bow (melee) | 3 | 2.33 | 1.67 | 1.67 | 1.67 |
The Spitespear and Halberd are both Reach 2″ and the bow is 3-15″, which is a good range for a bow. The Spitespear benefits from an extra point of toughness. Against a T4 enemy the Halberd is substantially better, but against T3 the spear and halberd are largely the same.
The bow is not as good as the sorcerous blast on your Swarmsage, or the Swarmsages Voracious Swarm, and I’d recommend a mix of Spears and Halberds to give you some tougher models.
Dryad
The ‘chaff’ model of the warband is exactly the same price as a Revenant with Harvest Blade, and sacrifices a point of crit damage and two wounds in return for being move 5″. It’s a little pricey for what it is (I’m particularly thinking in comparison to the Teratic Prowler in the same release) and if you have access to a second box I would sacrifice Dryads in favour of a solid ally model and more Revenants.
Example Warband
The box contents give you the following:
- Swarmsage
- 2 Revenants
- 2 Wardens
- 3 Dryads
Which, depending on the Wardens loadouts, gives you 980-990 points.
If you had access to two boxes I would suggest the following:
- Swarmsage
- Spite-Revenant with Briarlash
- 3 Revenants with Harvest Blade
- Warden with Spitespear
- 2 Wardens with Guardian Halberd
This is dead on 1000 points, and while you sacrifice a little movement you’ve gained 6 wounds and better damage output.
Overview and Suggested Allies
This warband doesn’t waste time with abilities built around action economy, instead having abilities based on murdering things, helping you if you are surrounded or sniping enemies with only a couple of wounds left. There’s a lot of reach 2 or 3 in the warband and damage output is high. You have mediocre but long range shooting available as well. I would focus on moving up quick and hitting hard, using your abilities to maximise damage.
For allies you are an Order warband, so have access to some incredibly good allies. Calthia Xandire is the obvious choice with Co-ordinated strike to give out bonus move actions and get your fighters into combat, but you could be thematic and bring bigger trees in the form of a Kurnoth Huntmaster, though you would be sacrificing two models to bring a big beefcake of a tree.
Taking the Swarmsage as an ally is also a possibility, as the model is solid as a fighter and gives Order an attack boosting ability (even if it does damage the target) that pairs very nicely with low attack but high damage output models like some Stormcast or Kurnoth Hunters.
Conclusion
Twistweald are a fairly straight forward aggressive warband, designed to beat the snot out of things and with abilities focused on damaging opponents. The models are very nice, and fit well with the AoS releases for the faction. I think Dryads are a little weak, and being ten points cheaper would have made them more competitive with Revenants for a place on the roster.
It’s a solid and well designed faction though, and if an ally is added that benefits the action economy (Calthia or a Questor Soulsworn with Great Axe) or is a big beefcake (Kurnoth Hunter) I can see them doing well competitively.
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