We’d like to thank Games Workshop for providing us with a review copy of this Battletome. We have also been provided with a provisional Battle Profile list for the army to use when writing the review, but please note that any points referenced in this review are subject to change until they are published on Warhammer Community.

Sylvaneth are an army as old and established as an ancient woodland, the original army that got the novel concept of “Battletome with actual content” back in first edition. Whilst they’ve obviously been through changes over the years, there’s always been these core concept of spreading trees, interacting with terrain, movement tricks and monster mash. These are all still present and correct here, just in new and different ways. For people used to more recent incarnations of the army, this new version might come as a bit of a shock to the system, but I’m confident that the core of this Battletome is a lot of fun and has some power behind it.

The Army

Battle Traits

It’s time to spin the wheel of total reinvention of an army. Of all the modern fourth edition Battletomes this one feels like the biggest change in theme and feel for an army. Let’s just get it over with: Teleporting through trees and Strike and Fade are gone as battle traits. Yes the slow stuff in the army is still really slow, yes there are a few ways to speed them up a bit, yes it’s going to feel totally different to play.

Let’s get something else out of the way: all of the battle traits revolve around needing Awakened Wyldwoods. That hasn’t changed. However, they’ve fixed some of what made that a pain in the arse before. An Awakened Wyldwood is now always just one tree model out of the kit, and they max out at 3 on the board at any one time. For new players especially this is huge - you only ever need to buy one Awakened Wyldwood kit. It makes the re-foresting of the board look a bit meagre, but good lord does it help your wallet.

Awakened Wyldwood. Credit: Matthew 'chimp' Ward

Before launching into the battle traits it’s probably helpful to start off by looking at the Awakened Wyldwood warscroll, as it is fundamental to the army. It’s got 8 Health and a 4+ save (but has lost the ward save that was FAQ’d in before) and three abilities. First is the least important - in the combat phase it can do some mortals to an enemy unit within 3”. Then we get into the way they interact with your battle traits - Overgrown Tokens. When you set a Wyldwood up, it gets a token. Once per battle round, at the start of every battle round, a Wyldwood can pick the closest terrain feature that is not controlled by your opponent and does not already have a token to have a token. Because this is a warscroll ability, the more Wyldwoods you have on the board, the more tokens you can start spitting out, as it’s not once per turn (army).

So for actual battle traits we start with Reclaimed by Nature which tells you to set up a new Wyldwood if you have fewer than 3 on the board. This happens in your hero phase, so it means that when you go to take your first turn you will in effect have 3 Overgrown Tokens in play - two from your deployment phase tree getting and sending out a token and then one more from your hero phase tree. Then if both those trees survive to battle round 2 you’re looking at potentially having 6 tokens, though you start to run into questions of your opponent controlling terrain to block tokens or killing trees.

The Creeping Overgrowth gives an effect for our tokens, another keyword that extends as an aura out from any terrain feature that has an Overgrown Token. The range of the aura depends on how many tokens you have on the board at that moment: 0-2 = 6”, 3-5 = 9”, 6-8 = 12”, 9+ = the entire battlefield. A lot of things in this book want to be in the Creeping Overgrowth to work, so managing your tokens is crucial to keeping things in that aura where they want to be, planning ahead and knowing what your incoming tokens will likely be and what that means for your ranges will be a key part of Sylvaneth play. It’s a good bit fiddlier than the old system of just slapping down Wyldwoods, but ultimately much more flexible, and whilst your faction trees are vulnerable you will be putting down tokens on generic terrain that your opponent cannot remove.

Finally we have four battle traits that give us something to do with the Creeping Overgrowth. Fury of the Forest costs a CP but lets you pick a friendly unit in the Creeping Overgrowth to get strike-first, in your opponent’s combat phase. This makes it effectively a defensive ability, and this is a concept that the army builds on more when we get to the warscrolls. The Land Awakens also costs a CP and lets you bring a destroyed unit of Dryads and non-hero Revenant infantry (we’ll get to that) back with half of its original number of models, wholly within the Creeping Overgrowth and more than 9” from enemy models. You know the drill. Finally, Endless Growth blessedly doesn’t cost a CP and is the end of any turn heal that you expect from Sylvaneth. All of your units in the Creeping Overgrowth can either heal d3 or bring d3 Health worth of models back to a unit.

Creeping Dread is our last ability and activates at the start of any turn - you pick an enemy unit within the Creeping Overgrowth and for the rest of the turn that unit has to spend 1 more CP than usual to use a command, unless it’s wholly within 12” of a hero in their army. This is conceptually interesting though in practice it might not be the highest impact ever - in tests it’s occasionally made an opponent move a minor hero in a different way than they would have. Its efficacy is very much in the hands of how your opponent built their army, so impossible to really give a rating to. If your opponent is low on heroes or has lots of units that flit about by themselves then it’ll be impactful. If your opponent is Sons of Behemet then, well, it won't do anything.

There’s a lot going on here but the battle traits aren’t that impactful in and of themselves - healing is nice, bringing back a unit of dryads is nice if you take them and strike-first is good but the cost is a pain and it’s purely reactive. What we’re really doing here is setting the stage for how the rest of the army will function with warscroll abilities.

Sylvaneth Warsong Revenant

Warsong Revenant. Credit: chimp

Battle Formations

A note about Scourge of Ghyran: Wargrove of the Everdusk needs a FAQ; as written it doesn’t do anything anymore - “Walk the Hidden Paths” doesn’t exist anymore. Wargrove of the Burgeoning might be slightly better as I’m a bit hotter on Dryads in this version of the army, but you’d have to skew pretty hard for it to be worth it above and beyond something from the tome.

Outcasts (Fear of the Deepwoods) - The ‘Creeping Dread’ battle trait range shrinks down to force units to be wholly within 6” of a hero to not get the extra command point tax. Whilst there will be some matchups where this is useless, this does go some way to make that battle trait a bit stronger. A wholly within 6” bubble is much more difficult for armies that rely on support heroes to keep up with for their combat units, and in practice I’ve found that it’s very easy for opponents to make small moves that slip units out of that wholly within bubble for you to punish. There’s splashier options here, but this has been my favourite.

Lords of the Clan (Nature’s Titans) - The ‘Endless Growth’ heal for Monsters is a flat 3 instead of d3. This was perennially popular in the faction pack and it’s still good, but I think you’ll see a bit less monster mash in this version of the army and there’s higher quality competition in the Battle Formation slot.

Followers of Kurnoth (Sacred Quarry) - A once per turn (Army) ability that picks a friendly Sylvaneth unit and gives them +1 to hit for all attacks while it is wholly within 12” of the enemy general or an enemy Warmaster. It’s a neat little assassin power and there aren’t that many bonuses to hit in the book, but it’s a bit niche. Note that you don’t have to target the enemy general/Warmaster, just be near them to get the bonus. Definitely playable but I don’t love the fiddliness of the wholly within positioning.

Glade Defenders (Memories of the Fallen) - Another once per turn (Army) for the hero phase that lets you pick a Sylvaneth unit for every friendly Sylvaneth unit or Awakened Wyldwood that was destroyed in the previous turn and then give that unit +1 attack for each of its melee weapons for the rest of the turn. People don’t love these powers where you get a bonus for stuff dying but this is solid, you have access to a couple of sub 100 point units to sacrifice - though unless you do some specific spamming you might be low enough unit count to not want to proc this too often.

Artefacts of Power

Another note on Scourge of Ghyran. Acorn of the Ages is quite a nice bit of tech now, as it lets you get all three Awakened Wyldwoods out in your first turn. All those 3 Wyldwoods will get an overgrown token, so you can potentially have 4 tokens out from the start of the game.

Seed of Rebirth - You know it. The first time the unit would be destroyed, if you can roll a 3+ they don’t die, ignore any remaining damage to be allocated and heal d3. As a “there’s nothing else I really want” option, it’s decent.

Amberglade Nectar - Once per battle in your combat phase you sniff the nectar and pick a visible enemy unit within 6” and for the rest of the turn all companion weapons by all Sylvaneth get +1 damage. Your list of companion weapons are the bug cavalry mounts, Alarielle and Belthanos’ bugs, Drycha’s bees and the Grove Guardian spites. The latter unit probably isn’t getting much out of this, but it’s a pretty serious damage upgrade to all of them. The issue really is getting it in place, all of those heroes are named characters that can’t take an artefact and the bugs outpace your generic combat heroes. I think the only real use-case here is if you happen to be doing the Arch-Revenant x Gossamid combo (more on that later) then you can give this to Archie-Rev to set up one of these companion-equipped units that are in the same combat. Fiddly, but +1 damage is +1 damage.

Wychwood Glaive - Your only non-Scourge not once-per-game artefact, and it’s a bit of a duffer. You pick a unit that has been damaged by the bearer in combat and they get -1 to save rolls for the rest of the battle. You can do this even if the bearer bites it, so I suppose you could throw an Arch-Rev in with this and pray to do some damage. Otherwise it’s another case of who is going to be carrying this? Durthu really wants to be killing what he fights quite quickly, not grinding them down and debuffing them. Again, this is a really strong effect, it just depends on your ability to actually utilise it.

Heroic Traits

Spirit of the Dark Forest - Pick a visible enemy hero to be the target (no range) and half their move characteristic for the rest of the turn. It’s only once per game, but potentially very strong. Being able to effectively cripple an Archaon or other big bad for an entire turn is juicy. The downside is that you’re going to have some games where this isn’t super useful, but basically every army has hero units that want to move, they’re just not always equally critical.

Spellsinger - +1 to cast for a wizard, or an unbind for a non-wizard. A bit of a downgrade for your non-wizards, but probably necessary given what they’ve done to the Warsong Revenant. +1 to cast is always banging, but Sylvaneth are so stuffed with named characters there just aren’t that many good units to actually take this anymore.

Realmroot Guide - OK I get it, you’re an old player and you miss teleporting. So do I. How about once per game the hero and one unit within its combat range can teleport from wholly within the Creeping Undergrowth to somewhere else wholly within the Creeping Undergrowth, more than 9” from enemy units. There is now so little mobility in this army outside of the specifically fast units, that if you go heavy the big trees you should be seriously considering it, even with the once per battle limitation.

Branchwych. Credit: Rockfish

Spell Lore

The change to the way Awakened Wyldwoods arrive on the battlefield frees up Sylvaneth to have a redesigned spell lore with a real unlimited spell, and it’s a very welcome change.

Jade Thorns (CV6, unlimited) - Pick a friendly unit wholly within 12” and they get +1 to wound in combat, including companion weapons. Nice and simple and good, lots of the army suffers with wounding on a 4+, though less useful on the big monsters with native 2+ to wound.

Zephyrspite Rush (CV6) - Pick a friendly unit wholly within 12” and they get to run and charge. For how slow some parts of the army are now I kinda wish this was the unlimited spell! Another very solid spell, you will likely be casting this every round.

Grasping Roots (CV5) - Kinda the uno reverso of the above, you pick a visible enemy within 18” and until the start of your next turn they can’t run and they’re -1 to charge. Not the world’s most impactful debuff, but the range and low casting value make it a decent inclusion.

Prayer Lore

Well well well, this is new isn’t it. Yes, Sylvaneth get priests now. It’s a welcome inclusion given the glut of spellcasters the army had access to before, as it opens up the design space. Note that all of the prayers require the target to be wholly within the Creeping Overgrowth.

Song of the Lost (CV4, unlimited) - Pick a friendly unit within 12” and your opponent is -1 to wound them until the start of your next turn. On an 8+ if the target is a monster it heals 3 and if it’s not a monster it becomes ethereal. Being able to throw a spell on a unit to boost their wound rolls whilst debuffing enemy wound rolls can seriously swing a combat, and that both are unlimited sets up some potentially interesting combinations. Though realistically, you’ll likely not be taking armies with enough priest levels to be getting multiple of these off a turn.

Song of War (CV5) - Pick a friendly within 12” and they get +1 rend. On a 10+, pick two units. If you were worried about the loss of Wrathful Spirits from the spell lore, here it is. Compared to the faction pack this can potentially affect fewer friendly units, however the way the prayer targets the unit and not the tree now makes this so much more user friendly

Song of Dread (CV4) - Pick an enemy within 18” and until the start of your next turn each time that unit uses a move ability and ends the move within the Creeping Dread they take d3 mortal damage. On an 8+ you can pick two targets. The only directly offensive spell or prayer and it’s a weird one! Potentially 2d3 mortals if the target moves and then charges within the Creeping Dread. Honestly, I think I’d be chanting the other prayers more often than this one.

Manifestations

All the manifestations summon wholly within 12” of the caster, the worm and the tree need to be more than 9” away from enemy units.

Gladewyrm (CV6) - Moves 8” with 7 Health and a 4+. You get some pretty swingy melee attacks and two abilities. Eldritch Hunters lets you teleport more than 9” from enemy non-wizard/priest units but only more than 3” away from enemy wizards/priests. This is fun because the other ability is an always on aura of -1 to cast, unbind, banish and chant for any enemy unit in combat range of the wiggly worm. It’s not overly exciting, but having an option to snipe out lone small-hero spellcasters who end up sitting at the back without a babysitter is nice to have.

Vengeful Skullroot (CV6) - Moves 8” with 8 Health and a 4+. Terrible melee profile and the Skullrussy no longer counts as an Awakened Wyldwood at all which would have been nice, but it does have a 6” aura of -1 to hit for enemy units, which is a pretty sweet deal all things considered.

Spiteswarm Hive (CV6) - God what a sad state this manifestation was in the faction pack, falling from the heady heights of being stapled onto every 3rd edition army list. Anyway forget all of that, because now it’s a bee machine gun. You get 5 shots at 18” with crit 2-hits and a bit of rend. In every turn subsequent to the one it was set up in, you can instead make 15 attacks if the target is within 9”. This is not an amazing spell, but honestly you can cast it early to babysit some Dryads guarding an objective and it will happily dissuade any enemy bozos, if it makes your opponent waste action economy dispelling it then all the better.

Gladewyrm. Credit: Mike Bettle-Shaffer

Warscrolls

Unique Heroes

Alarielle has had a bit of an overhaul despite being the glue that held the faction pack together early doors. Her defences have changed up a bit, now having a pretty mean 4+ save but upgrading her ward to 5+ in the bargain. Most of the time this isn’t actually hugely impactful on how much damage she takes, but she’ll be slightly more vulnerable to big rend and slightly more survivable against mortals. For the rest of her stats it’s basically the same, but she’s a handy control 10 now and the Spear of Kurnoth has picked up charge (+1 damage) in melee, and that does actually seriously boost her output, giving her 5 damage 3 attacks and 6 damage 4 attacks on the charge.

Literally every one of her abilities has seen a change so let’s rattle through ‘em. Living Battering Ram is still a 3+ for that many mortals on a d6 but can now target everything not just infantry. Lifebloom doesn’t give you an option anymore, it’s always a heal, but it’s also a full 2d6 heal every hero phase. Her spell Metamorphosis is 2d3 mortals on an enemy unit, and if it kills that unit you pick the closest terrain feature to the target and it gets an Overgrown Token. If all of the terrain has such a token, you blast out d3 mortals to everything within 6”. The Goddess of Life is a returning resurrection mechanic and it’s seen a big change. On the plus side, this once per battle ability is no longer tied to a bloody dice roll, it instead costs you 2CP. That’s a lot of CP, but being guaranteed to work is an enormous quality of life improvement. The downside is that it can now only be used on Alarielle herself and the damage you self-inflict upon resurrection is a bit higher (and that if your Creeping Overgrowth is at its lowest level, her base is too big to fit wholly within, woops). Finally (phew) there’s a brand new ability Seasons of War which lets you pick one effect at the start of every battle round, to last for the rest of the battle round. You can’t pick the same ability twice in a row. Your options are: you can pick any terrain feature for the Awakened Wyldwood token handing out, not just the closest; +1 to cast and chant wholly within 12”; army-wide retreat and charge with no mortals taken by any retreat; and the ability to select 3 targets for the Creeping Dread. This is a big, wordy warscroll with loads going on. Whilst there’s ups and downs here, I feel like this is overall an upgrade for Alarielle and she’s a whopping 80 points cheaper into the bargain. You’ll be seeing her a lot.

Belthanos. Credit: chimp

Next up is Belthanos - he’s stayed the same in stats and is still a combat character, but with no ward and some swingy attacks he can get quickly brought down if a combat goes the wrong way. His rampage still lets Belthanos do some chip mortals and then reposition in combat, so long as he ends up still within an inch of the enemy. Still, with a big base there’s lots you can do with that - at a minimum getting to backflip over a screen an onto an objective is great. His other abilities have changed - he no longer makes terrain count as a Wyldwood because that’s what the army does so instead he has another teleport ability, happening at the end of any turn that he made a charge move in, which lets him appear wholly within the Creeping Undergrowth, more than 6” from enemy units. Finally, his Kurnoth War-Horn is now a 12” aura of +2” move for Kurnothi units. With all that faction teleporting gone, Kurnoth Hunters feel particularly slow, so this does go a good way of helping them get into the fight. With the run and charge spell, they’ll keep up with Belthanos as well, which is vital for getting a Go Turn together. Belthanos has also had a really big points drop down to 290, and the dual utility that he brings in boosting Kurnoth and having his own repositioning tech make him pretty valuable.

The Lady of Vines remains a support piece that I don’t think quite gets there. She’s one of the few units in the army that has gotten slower, down to 6”, but has gone up to 10 Health. She’s had the same defensive change as Alarielle, so a 4+ save with 5+ ward. Her spell is the same as ever, casting on a 7 for a 12” aura of 5+ ward. It’s a super strong spell (though a bit of a weird non-interaction with herself given her new baseline ward), but having the cornerstone of your expensive unit’s efficacy be tied to rawdogging a 7 to cast is just not ideal. Once per battle she can also hand out an Overgrown Token to some terrain within 18”, which helps your tree economy a bit. She’s also picked up the ability to sling spells through trees, having a rampage that lets her pick a terrain feature within 18” that has an Overgrown Token to measure the range and visibility of her spells. It’s a nice ability, but the army doesn’t really have the kind of devastating spells it used to have in combination with abilities like this. I’m lukewarm on her, she’s playable but also for some reason has gone way up in points and I don’t think you can justify 280 points.

Following on from an extremely successful Scourge of Ghyran warscroll is Drycha Hamadreth. Drycha’s back to having two attack profiles, with 5 attacks at damage 2 for her talons and 20 attacks crit mortal for her associated melee bees - this honestly works out being about the same damage output as Scourge, but with more of the damage coming from much swingier mortals. Whilst Scourge Drycha was more of a support piece for the army that could also wade into melee and dish it out, this version is more of an assassin - which is probably a better thematic fit for the character! She has a passive that stops enemies within 9” from running or retreating which is niche but will be handy when it comes up. Her spell casts on a 7 and picks 3 enemy units with 12” or within the Creeping Undergrowth to take d3 mortals. I just got done ragging on a wizard for casting on a 7 but Drycha just has a bit more going on than the LoV. That going on is largely thanks to Merciless Ambush, a charge phase rampage with a lot of words. If she’s not in combat and hasn’t used a run or retreat ability this turn, Drycha can make a 2d6 charge roll and can then teleport into ½” of an enemy unit, so long as she is within a number of inches of some terrain with an Overgrown Token equal to your charge roll. It’s a bit complicated, and kind of annoying to use the Overgrown mechanic in a different way to every other rule that just asks you to be within the Overgrown bubble, but it does give her a really interesting ability to ping pong around the table beating stuff up. Unlike other units that have recently been given teleport charges like the Light of Eltharion, there’s no requirement to have other units set this up for her, she can start wailing on stuff in a self contained way, the limitation being your terrain coverage. Drycha’s also gone up, but is still cheaper than the Scourge version at 250. My real concern with this warscroll is that without an obvious way back out until your next charge phase, there’s a good chance that she can end up tele-charging to her own death, and 250 is really expensive for what is a very inconsistent warscroll.

Heroes

We kick off generic heroes with the brand new Grove Guardian. They’re super fragile with 7 Health behind a 5+ save and no ward, and have some melee weapons that are better than your usual priest but uh hey, look at that defensive statline please do not get her in combat. The big selling point to the Grove Guardian is that they’re a Priest (2) and therefore quite effective at getting out the decent Sylvaneth prayers. She has her own warscroll prayer which is either a weak d3 heal or returns d3 models to Dryads and revenant infantry. There’s also a passive to bounce mortals back from models when they die on a 5+, but really the key selling point is Priest (2). For a whopping 220 points I just don’t see this making it, it’s so fragile, the extra rules it comes with are so middling and there’s a cheaper Priest option kicking around.

The Warsong Revenant is the cheaper Priest option kicking around. Very similar stats to the Grove Guardian, though with a 6+ ward into the bargain. The Warsong is a Priest (1) but comes with two much more useful abilities, frankly. Rousing Accompaniment is a once per turn (army) re-roll on a chanting roll of a 1, so whilst they don’t have the same potential to bank points as a Grove Guardian, they’re much more reliable on the individual chant. Alarielle’s Song is a passive 12” aura of a 6+ ward for Sylvaneth units and -1 to ward rolls for enemy units. Super solid, 150 points, you’re gonna keep seeing this guy.

It’s total conceptual redesign time for the Arch-Revenant who is now a combat hero that wants to play with Gossamid Archers. You heard me. You get a 12” move but otherwise pretty standard generic-foot-hero stats. Two abilities set up a combo. Gossamid Commander is a combat phase ability that triggers if the Arch-Rev charged that turn, you can pick a unit of Gossamids wholly within 18” that is not in combat to immediately shoot a unit that the Arch-Rev is in combat with. That’s cool, but what stops your hero from getting immediately clapped by whatever they charged is Fight and Fly, which is a reaction to declaring a fight ability for them which lets them move 2d6” after finishing the fight ability. So you charge in, shoot your Gossamids, punch the enemy and then peace out. Hopefully. If you don’t roll snake eyes. There’s also the downside of it costing you an activation to get the Arch-Rev out of combat (assuming you need to do that). It’s cool, the Arch-Rev is kinda spendy at 130 but double-tapping a shooting unit always has a cost. The damage isn’t going to set the world alight, but it does give this unit a role that it’s never really had before. They’re also a sub-commander (the only sub-commander), if you’re worried about drops.

The Treelord Ancient takes a wild swing up in points, to 280, now being a Wizard (2). It lost the strike-last rampage and replaced it with an ability that can give each other Treelord kit unit +1 to hit in combat on a 3+. Treelords do a lot of hitting on 4s, so if you’re doing a march of the ents monster mash then it’s probably worth taking this guy. It also has an ability to bring back a dead Treelord or Kurnoth unit - though this ability costs you an Overgrown token AND only bring back 1 Kurnoth to a unit and allocates 10 damage to a Treelord (of their 14 Health) so it’s not quite as exciting as it first looks.

It’s worth asking the question “do I actually want to run a Treelord army anymore?” and I think it’s a struggle now, honestly. Treelords have gone from ultramobility in third edition to just being really bloody slow now. Sure, the movement has been buffed up to 6” in this book, but let’s be honest - 6” moving monsters with 14 health and no ward are just asking to get shot to bits. Add on that actually none of these besides Durthu even hit that hard and it’s an archetype you’re doing for the love of the theme rather than raw power.

Sylvaneth Spirit of Durthu. Credit: chimp

Speaking of the Spirit of Durthu, it’s back and it’s basically the same. I must take the opportunity to moan about the Guardian Sword, once a weapon of flat damage 6, down to a measly 4 in this incarnation. Sure, it’s been correspondingly buffed up to 5 attacks so is much more consistent and reliable, that’s the overall theme of this Battletome, but it loses a bit of the feeling of Durthu for me. Have I cursed this sword when it whiffed its handful of attacks in the past? Of course. Did I cheer when it spiked and deleted an entire unit? Of course. He’s got the strike-last rampage now, so that’s nice. I think Durthu’s the most playable Treelord variant because he still does good damage, and remains at 320 points.

Our final hero is the Branchwych, who still exists. 100 points for a Wizard is good going as a baseline and she gets an ability to pick an enemy unit in the Creeping Overgrowth OR visible and in friendly territory and on a 3+ your whole army is +1 to wound them in melee. There’s quite a few ways to get +1 to wound in this army, but freeing up your spellcasting to do other things is pretty dang handy. She’s not super exciting or anything, but I like the Branchwych.

Credit: BuffaloChicken

Infantry

I also quite like Dryads who are basically the same as they’ve always been but end up feeling much better. 90 points gets you 10 bodies with a 6” move and a 5+ save. 2 attacks with no rend wont hurt a fly, you’re here for their surprising ability to tank. If they’re wholly within the Creeping Overgrowth, they’re -1 to be hit and wounded. It’s the expansion of this ability out from just being Awakened Wyldwoods to the new Overgrowth system that makes these feel better - it just takes your opponent more resources than they expect to remove this unit.

OK we need to talk about Tree-Revenants and Spite-Revenants. Games Workshop. What the fuck are we doing here. Tree-Revs have gained an attack on their profile and lost the ability to teleport. In exchange, they get +1 damage if they haven’t charged. Spite-Revenants don’t turn off commands anymore and in exchange have gained the ability to teleport. I’m rubbing my temples at this one. Spite-Revs still have crit mortals with 3 attacks and are still 80 points so seem like an absolute steal of a unit now. There’s downsides to this exchange - the teleport is still once per turn (army) so can’t be spammed and much more restrictive than the old Tree-Rev teleport, as the setup has to be wholly within 3” of a terrain feature. This makes them much worse at sneaking objectives, they need to do it a turn in advance.

Tree-Revs are now a weird unit that wants to tank an enemy charge, but this is a 5+ save unit you know. Conceptually they’re holding the same design space as Kurnoth with Greatscythes and Revenant Seekers, and I like the Kurnoth a lot more. Tree-Revs have also gone up 20 to 110 points. Not for me.

Also with the Revenant keyword are Gossamid Archers. These are super similar to the faction pack, just a little bit worse. They can still move d6” after shooting, but their bows now wound on a 4+. These really want to be paired with the Arch-Rev, which also makes you want to take a reinforced unit of them. That’s a bit concerning as they’re super fragile and 120 points a pop. The full combo with a reinforced unit and the hero comes out to 370 which is a decent chunk of change, but it does get you potentially a lot of shots and a lot of mobility (the Gossamids can move again after the combat phase shoot).

Our final Revenant Infantry is The Twistweald who don’t do charge roll reduction anymore, so no cheeky combos with Scourge Drycha. Instead their kinda mediocre weapons can get crit (2 hits) if they charge, and they can pick something in combat with them at the end of the turn and give them the infested keyword for the rest of the game. Infested units can’t move more than 6” when using a non-charge move. That’s neat, but because you can’t reinforce them it means you’ve gotta get 16 wounds and a 5+ save to survive combat with something that you’d want to make slower. If you can get that off on something speedy it’s great, obviously. They’re 120 points. I probably wouldn’t bother, but it’s an ability for the gamblers out there.

Let’s move on to Kurnoth Hunters who come in three varieties. All share a basic statline of move 6”, 5 Health and a 4+ save with an ability to subtract 1 from incoming rend if they’re wholly within the Creeping Undergrowth. Greatswords are basically unchanged from the faction pack: 4 attacks at damage 2 with crit mortals and impact hits of the ‘roll a dice for each model in combat with the target and on a 3+ do a mortal’ variety. They’re 200 points and I like them a good amount, though I think you really do want Belthanos to speed ‘em up. Slightly cheaper at 190 is Greatscythes who are the flip reverse role, with 3 attacks at damage 3 and anti-charge +1 rend, and an ability to do mortal wounds to anything that charges them. They’re fine, but are a bit passive when swords are right there and you will want to dedicate a CP to them each battle round to hit your enemy first. Finally we’ve got Greatbows who have had a change of identity. The bows swap out anti-hero for anti-cavalry +1 rend and if they don’t move in a turn then their shooting gets +1 to hit. These are 200 and I like them a good amount more now, they can pump out some really reliable anti-cavalry shooting. I like Kurnoth a lot now, and would happily run two reinforced units. The ability to reduce incoming rend is massive for their survivability.

Cavalry

It’s the bug riders and first up is a change-up for Spiterider Lancers who I think will be a unit we see people try to make more use of. The mount’s companion attacks lose extra damage on the charge for just always being damage 2 which is nice, and the lance attacks trade anti-cavalry for crit (2 hits) which I’ll take for an all-comers hammer. There’s no more strike-first or thrumming with life on this lot, but instead they grab Strike and Fade, letting them teleport at the end of any turn in which they charged, though they have to be more than 9” away from enemy models and wholly in the Creeping Overgrowth. That last bit might make things tricky with the large bases in early turns if you haven’t gotten the tokens out yet. They are up to 220 points now, which is a lot, and I worry about a big unit being able to get enough return for that investment. As a hammer you’re effectively trading the consistent hitting power of greatsword Kurnoth for speed. I’d be happier with this trade if they were cheaper.

I am even cooler on Revenant Seekers, especially whilst the Scourge version exist that are just straight up better. Their sickles are still crit mortal, but back down to damage 1. Their gimmick is that if they don’t charge they can reduce the number of attacks an enemy in combat with them has by 1. Honestly both these units now do feel a lot like thicc versions of the Idoneth eels, which is kind of a shame for theming. Rev Seekers are 180 points. I don’t know that we needed a third unit that wants to be charged to be able to do its thing. These probably make the best anvil of the want-to-be-charged units and they’re fast but I’m just not really feeling the gameplan. Again, I think because of the enemy-turn strike-first, the Kurnoth version of this concept is just a bit more effective.

Sylvaneth Treelord. Credit: chimp

Monster

Hey we never mentioned da humble Treelord, well that’s because it’s stopped being a hero and is back to being a regular monster. It’s for the best, makes the battle profile less messy. 14 Health, 3+ save, some attacks that aren’t amazing but do contain the ability to spike and do a bunch of mortals. That’s Treemen. You get a rampage to kill an enemy model if you can roll over its Health, which is fine and extremely funny if you can get it on some enemy foot hero that charges in, or kill a Varanguard or whatever. Lash and Tangle triggers after you shoot its Strangeroots and if you did any damage you can subtract 1 from hit rolls from the target on a 3+. 260 points. I’m not feelin’ em.

How They’ll Play

I’ve talked a lot about how different this army is but some things are the same: the army is elite and quite brittle. Without being able to punt on teleport charges you can get left seriously exposed against shooting armies. Still, there’s a lot to like here and it’s an army that will reward more thoughtful play. The new battle traits put a lot of pressure on your opponent, there’s a lot for them to think about and worry about with both your and their own positioning. In our testing, people haven’t wanted to target the trees too much, as there’s too much else for them to worry about, and that’s meant that even from turn 2 the spread of the Creeping Overgrowth has felt massive over the board.

For units I think Belthanos and Kurnoth will remain popular. There’s so much you can do with Belthanos now having two different teleports, and the access to strike first with a CP can give your opponent some really tricky decisions with the re-positional rampage. All varieties of Kurnoth remain super solid, but swords for me are the easiest to use as a simple hammer. Still, Scythes as a screen for them remain a very powerful choice. Alarielle feels very strong now but she’s super fragile and you do have to play her cagily. I’ve also found Dryads to be solid and dependable whilst Spite-Revs are handy but quite tricky to use well. Fundamentally, the army feels fun when you start to pull the tricks off, so mission accomplished there.

Armies of Renown

I really just want to talk about how the design team are, in these new Battletomes, coming up with lots of intricate keyword based mechanics that tie battle traits into warscrolls and how that leaves them in such a weird place for Armies of Renown - a feature that they’re obliged to put two of in every Battletome but now have to come up with some other way of interacting with the new keyword that’s on half the warscrolls. It’s awkward and I don’t really like it and I feel like we’re at the point where AoRs are largely a failed mechanic that are either totally irredeemably busted or a waste of pagecount.

Lords of the Clan

If you guessed Treelord focussed AoR for this army then well done you, what powers of prediction you wield. You can take the Lady of Vines, any Treelord, the Grove Guardian and any Kurnothi Infantry. This army is stupid. First we’ve gotta spend a battle trait explaining that you set all three of the Awakened Wyldwoods up on the battlefield at deployment. Cool. Then we spend a battle trait explaining that in this army, the Creeping Overgrowth is just a flat 6” aura around every terrain feature with an Overgrowth Token, and you can extend the range by 1” for every unit wholly outside friendly territory. Now we’ve got space for two actual abilities. We spend one of them forcing you to set up units in reserve, you have to deploy a unit in reserve if you have more units on the board than in reserve. That’s a lot of stuff in reserve. Our final ability is in the enemy movement phase and lets you deploy a unit in reserve or a monster that has been destroyed. To do so you must: spend a command point, have an enemy unit within 9” of an Awakened Wyldwood, set the unit up wholly within 6” of the Wyldwood and within 9” of the target but not in combat and if it’s a replacement unit then allocate 6 damage to it. Then remove the Wyldwood. This AoR expends so many words on setting this up, and yeah it’s cool you can teleport really close to the enemy but also because it’s a battle trait that you, the player, are using you can only do it once per turn.

There’s a heroic trait to let the unit charge even if it’s in combat, which is neat for getting unstuck. The artefact is a Heal (3) at the end of every turn which is OK but worse than just being in a Sylvaneth army where everything heals. The spell lets you spam out up to 9 Wyldwoods over the course of the game, so this army is for you old Sylvaneth players who bought 3 Wyldwood kits and collected too many treelords in boxed sets. I’m not bitter, I’m fine. There’s a prayer in case you took the Grove Guardian and that lets you ignore the battle damaged ability on a unit’s warscroll, which is a neat trick we haven’t actually seen much of in this edition. The manifestation lore does the new thing of being one spell that lets you summon any of the manifestations.

This is garbage, what are we doing.

Sylvaneth Treelord Ancient. Credit: chimp

Soulpod Guardians

You can take the Grove Guardian yet again, a Branchwych and any Revenant unit. So that’s both forms of the bug cavalry, Spite-Revenants, Tree-Revenants, Gossamid Archers, The Twistweald, the Warsong Revenant, and the Arch-Revenant. Phew.

This army does a different thing with your trees, setting 3 up as a single miniature in the Classic Sylvaneth style, and it becomes a Soulpod Grove. It’s got 18 Health and the Creeping Overgrowth extends 12” out from it. Should your smart-alec enemy decide to destroy the Soulpod Grove then for the rest of the battle you get +2 attacks on literally every melee weapon in your army. This is, at least, extremely hilarious. The main actual gimmick here is that whilst a friendly unit is wholly within 12” of the Soulpod Grove then it can’t be allocated more than 10 damage per phase. This is a supremely weird ability, but it does go some way to help what is otherwise a really very flimsy army. That’s it for your battle traits though, do you get what I mean about these recent AoRs having to spend so much space setting up keywords that already exist you end up with thin soup for rules.

Your heroic trait lets you heal the Soulpod Grove for 10 if the hero ever dies. I don’t know about you, but if I’m playing against this army I didn’t want to give my opponent +2 attacks on everything forever anyway. The artefact lets you teleport 3 units from anywhere on the board to wholly within 12” of the Soulpod Grove if there are enemies within 12” of the Soulpod Grove. For a spell you get one that targets an objective within 18” and you add 5 to the control scores of friendly units contesting that objective. Being unlimited, you could potentially stack quite a lot of control on a few objectives, if you were willing to spam Branchwyches. A neat mechanic, wasted on being in an AoR. For a prayer there’s a weird tree-murderlust. You target a friendly unit within 12” of your Soulpod Grove and then they can move 5”, including into combat. There’s the triple manifestation spell again.

This one feels more inventive than the Lords of the Clan at least, so I’ll give it props for that. I don’t feel like either of these are any good and I also don’t feel like either particularly make me want to play their weird skew, and that’s sort of the point of AoRs? When the first clutch of battletomes in this edition were just reprints of the faction packs, AoRs did feel like an attempt was made to provide more interest & different options to an army. These days I honestly think this is 4 pages that could have been extra tables of upgrades or spell lores or anything tied into the main army. Scourge of Ghyran has kinda shown us now that that is the way to make these 4th ed armies more interesting.

Regiments of Renown

Drycha’s Talons

Drycha and two units of 5 Spite-Revenants coming in at 360 points, a decent saving of 50 points. Two abilities here: one gives terrain features an Overgrown Token (because Drycha needs them to function) if they’re contested by a Spite-Revenant unit, the other makes the Spire-Revenants invisible to units more than 12” away if they’re wholly within 3” of a terrain feature.

I kinda dig this one, it’s spendy but you get units that can bounce around the board and do primary and secondary objectives for you plus the ability for a beatstick hero to appear out of a wall to punch somebody in the face. It’s not going to set the competitive scene alight, but if you like these models and want to include them in your army then they have an actual job that they will do.

The Twisted Branch

This is a Branchwych and The Twistweald for 210 points, a saving of 10 whole points. They get a deployment phase ability to get removed from the battlefield and set up again anywhere wholly within 6” of terrain and more than 9” from enemy units, and the Branchwych gets a spell to heal (3) a friendly unit (not just one from this RoR, blessedly). Eh, it’s whatever. The package of chaff infantry and a wizard that can cast a heal feels kinda expensive, because you’re paying for the potential of their warscroll abilities.

Sylvaneth Kurnoth Hunters with Greatswords. Credit: chimp

Final Thoughts

It’s solid, it picks a theme and nails it, and it’s crucially quite fun. There are some aspects that I’m not a huge fan of - I think the army leans a little too heavily on the ‘I want to be charged’ gimmick and we could have done with giving one of those anti-charge units another role, I’m struggling a bit with the role for the iconic Treelords in the army, and I think the enhancements are quite weak.

On the other hand there’s some really admirable stuff here, I’ve joked about it but the change to Awakened Wyldwoods is probably the single most impactful change here, it’s an enormous quality of life increase and makes buy-in for new Sylvaneth players so much more palatable. Being told you had to buy at least two of the Wyldwood kit just to play the army was a huge turn off for people, so I do hope we see an uptick in players picking this army up.

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Tags: Sylvaneth | battletome | battletome review