A thank you to Games Workshop for sending us these rules and the Skaventide box set to be able to cover and review. Over the coming weeks, and with the benefit of having played dozens of games, we will be having faction experts provide insight into how they are building and running lists with these factions. For this overview we’re looking at what stands out for the faction, how much has changed, and how we would approach dealing with some of the common threats that are present in all wargames.
Sylvaneth are a venerable faction for Age of Sigmar, they conjure thoughts of monster mash, of elite armies teleporting across the board, of a close relationship with the terrain on the board. They’re quite unique as an ‘aelf’ army; yes, they’re elite and active in every phase of the game as you’d expect, but they do it with a preponderance of monsters and heavy infantry.
I think this faction pack struggles more than most, with this edition’s design instinct to cut away and de-tune rules butting up against the classic feel of the army. I think there’s also some disappointing internal balance. On the flip side, there’s lots of improved things here, and they will feel more ‘fair’ for an opponent to play against.
Army Rules
As usual, check out WarCom for the full page text of the battle traits. Worth noting here is that Endless Growth now activates in both player turns, so Sylvaneth are no longer reliant on getting priority to keep the healing going. A great quality of life change, and particularly appreciated for an army that often relies on multi-wound models.
The change to Strike and Fade letting your enemy actually hit you back is a blow to an army that despite big armour saves can feel very fragile on the table. On the other hand, it can now also be used in your opponent’s turn, which can potentially open up avenues for very sneaky plays against an opponent who forgets to screen you off objectives in their own turn.
Sylvaneth also retain their ability to teleport a unit a turn through Awakened Wyldwoods. This looks the same as before but some key other changes from third edition mean your army is functionally much less mobile than it was. Places of power are totally gone, so you are fully locked to only teleporting between Awakened Wyldwoods, and the various flavour of Treelord no longer get to teleport through the trees in addition to the once per turn battle trait. The functional result of this is that Sylvaneth in this edition will have to do a lot more foot slogging than they are used to.
Battle Formations
Lords of the Clan
Your monsters heal 3 from Endless Growth rather than d3. Monsters are a bit of a highlight for Sylvaneth, and getting 6 health back guaranteed per battleround per monster is a big healing swing. Particularly nasty with Alarielle who can get a 2d3 hero phase heal on top of this. Opponents without the ability to alpha strike your monsters in one go may struggle to chew through them.
Forest Folk
Your non-Kurnoth infantry get +1 rend if they charge. Spite-revenants and the Twistweald throw an OK number of dice in melee, but they’re still not particularly high quality attacks even with a pip of rend. This feels like they were scared of making Kurnoth Hunters too good but as we’ll get to, I don’t think that would have been on the menu.
Outcasts
Enemy units in combat with Sylvaneth get -3 control. Sylvaneth are an elite, low model count army. Your infantry units are small, your bigger models are between 2-5 control. This is your way to play into the primary, but its efficacy is somewhat out of your hands – whether 3 control is enough to swing objectives will depend on what you’re facing up against.
Free Spirits
One cavalry unit gets to run and charge. Sylvaneth cavalry options are limited, but pretty good. This will get one unit across the board, but even with a cavalry-heavy army you might prefer Outcasts just for the objective play.
Heroic Traits
Radiant Spirit
This is a reaction ability when your opponent casts a spell or chants a prayer, if a friendly unit wholly within 12” is the target of the spell or prayer you can ignore it on a 3+. You can proc this multiple times, but not multiple times per ability it is blocking (ie one spell and one prayer). Actually a very cool ability, if there’s one thing Sylvaneth cannot abide as an elite army with limited ward access it is mortal wounds, and this is solid defence against some of the primary sources of it.
Warsinger
One Sylvaneth unit wholly within 12” gets +2 move. This is not very exciting. A big block of Kurnoth quite like this with a Belthanos run and charge, but then they’re running away from the support that they likely need.
Spellsinger
If your hero is within combat range of an Awakened Wyldwood it gets +1 to cast if it’s a wizard, or becomes a wizard if it isn’t already. A decent pick for a Warsong, the other wizards you are likely to take are either unique or single casters where this is less useful. You could put this on Durthu to make it a comedy emergency wizard, or an Arch-Revenant just so it can do something useful in the early game.
Artefacts of Power
Seed of Rebirth
If the unit holding this is destroyed, it can stay alive on one wound on a 3+. Timing is everything here, if you’re popping this at the bottom of your opponent’s combat phase and there’s nothing they can do to take that single wound before you then heal back up this is powerful. But surviving a shooting or charge phase on a single wound might not be enough to keep the model on the table in a serious way.
Greenwood Gladius
Every combat phase you get to pick an enemy in combat with you and roll a d3 for that many mortals on a 2+. Chip mortal damage like this is actually pretty good, especially if you can teleport away and heal but your opponent can’t.
Crown of Fell Bowers
Every combat phase you get to pick an enemy in combat and on a 3+ your army gets +1 to wound them for that phase. On the face of it this looks like the better of the two combat abilities here, but it’s pretty build dependent. Plenty of the Sylvaneth monsters already wound on a 2+, and if you’re doing Kurnoth then they can get +1 to wound from another source.
Spell Lore
Two spell lores: a regular one and a manifestation. All of your manifestations cast on a 7 and are set up within 9” of the caster. Easy.
Treesong
Casts on a 6, if there are fewer than 3 Awakened Wyldwoods on the table you can deploy a new one wholly within 18”. Woods are big so that range is tight. Beyond the one you get at deployment this is the only way of adding new woods to the board. If you want to use two thirds of your battle traits at all, you have to be casting this.
Wrathful Spirits
Pick an Awakened Wyldwood wholly within 18” and your units get +1 rend in melee if they’re within 6” of it. Easy 1-2 combo with Treesong if you have a double caster.
The Dwellers Below
Some funky targeting here, you can pick an enemy within 12” of the caster or 6” of an Awakened Wyldwood anywhere, which is cool (let’s ignore the question of how many woods you will actually have down for now). Roll a number of dice equal to the number of models in the unit and do 1 mortal for each 5+. OK to really bad entirely dependent on matchup. At least your wizards get to know it for free this edition.
Manifestations
Let’s rip the bandaid off, Spiteswarm Hive is now +1 to run and charge. This and the way that summoning Wyldwoods now works I think just stone cold kills the charging out of the trees strategy, it is utterly unreliable. Run up the board like everyone else.
The Gladewyrm and Vengeful Skullroot both move 8” and get some pretty swingy melee attacks. The Skullroot also gets to pick an enemy within 3” and subtract a number from its control score equal to the number of non-manifestation/terrain Sylvaneth units that have been destroyed in the battle. Might flip you an objective in the late game, but not terribly exciting. The Gladewyrm gets to teleport if it isn’t in combat with the usual more than 9” from enemy units restriction except it can pop up more than 3” from a wizard. It’s anti-Wizard +1 rend and has 6 d3 damage attacks so might be a decent assassin if your opponent has a backfield wizard they forget to screen. If you fluff the melee, it also gives wizards in combat with it -1 to cast, unbind and banish.
Awakened Wyldwood
You get to set one up with usual restrictions, you can choose to deploy 1,2 or all 3 bits of the wood (but they have to be set up touching tips), so expect to spend a non-zero amount of time with 7 different combat gauges working out the optimal placement. Beyond all the stuff you get in the army that keys off of Awakened Wyldwoods you get a rule allowing your units to ignore the usual terrain rules and shoot through the Awakened Wyldwood. If your opponent happens to wander into combat range of a wood, you can do d3 mortals on a 4+ in the combat phase.
Awakened Wyldwoods have between 8-12 wounds and a 4+ save so it is amusingly easy to destroy a forest by shooting some arrows at it. The army does want to be getting woods up the board into areas where the enemy will be, so the health of them is a real consideration.
Warscroll Spotlights
You’ve all seen the Warscroll in the preview already but let’s all take a moment to appreciate how much Alarielle the Everqueen has improved. So proud my queen can now stab with her spear as well as throw it. Loadsa healing, 3 casts, a way to double dip on Treesong in a turn, resurrecting units. Expect to see a good amount of her in competitive play.
Another lady that might show up more often now is The Lady of Vines who now just counts as an Awakened Wyldwood for all 3 battle traits (but nothing else). Price-dependent, a walking way to solve your Wyldwood problem is good to have.
Belthanos is a fast, tough beatstick (though he’s forgotten his ward in the edition change) who will also see a lot of play thanks to two abilities: he can tag terrain pieces to count as Awakened Wyldwoods and can give three units the ability to run and charge with no range restriction. Huge opening up of mobility for the army here and that it is tied to a combat monster will make him very popular.
Your basic Treelord is now a hero. Its melee attacks being 4+ to hit make it deeply unreliable in combat but it does get 3+ rolls to make enemies unable to run or retreat after shooting them, and to be -1 to wound in melee. Treelord Ancients get to inflict strike-last, but on a 4+.
Gossamid Archers have had the expected depowering, but I think this might actually be to their benefit. Their bows can shoot into combat and auto-wound on a crit plus have a pip of rend so are now much more reliable. Once per turn in any shooting phase they can make a d6” move if they shoot. Gives you a bit of fire and fade in your own turn and you can use Covering Fire from the core rules to jump away a bit in the enemy turn, but it’s not the total anti-charge tech of old. Whilst a bit less spikey in their potential to affect the outcome of a battle, this is now a solid unit that will be much easier for the design team to cost appropriately.
Finally let’s talk about Kurnoth Hunters, where I think the pack takes a big swing and a miss. These are largely as they were except for a drop down to a 4+ save. Melee hunters do a few drop mortal damage in melee but are otherwise hitting about as hard as charging Spiteriders – a unit that is also now as tough as them and twice as fast (not to mention naturally healing and striking-first). There’s a little bit of synergy for them but actually not that much Kurnoth-specific, pretty much just the Arch-Revenant (a hero that is basically useless outside of that buff). The bow hunters I am hotter on, as they have an actual role with anti-hero +1 rend bows and an ability to ignore the Guarded Hero ability. 3 of them have a pretty reasonable punt at taking out a small hero every turn.
Songs of War
Sylvaneth are likely to end up being decent but unspectacular here. Without using the specific fast units available to them they can still get around the board but it requires setup to happen and some of the positioning battle tactics like Take the Flanks require the units completing them to do it without teleporting.
Unleashing Ghyran’s Wrath
Why does so much of this army rely on you casting a single god damn spell. This is the core of my frustration – a huge amount of what this army can do is tied to Awakened Wyldwoods but unless you take one or both specific unique heroes then your ability to actually do any of that is tied to casting Treesong, and your opponent will know this! There’s still a good army in here: Alarielle, Belthanos and Durthu are all obviously strong, Spiteriders look great and they still have tricksy infantry. Just expect the army to play a bit more normally.
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