My sons want to start trying out the Sylvan Kin for a mixture of shooty elves plus forest shamblers and a tree herder. Any starter lists out there? I’m thinking 2-4 regiments of gladestalkers, at least a horde of shamblers, the wiltfather… what else for a 2300 point list?
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How nasty do you want to go? And how technical (re: surge and all that)? Here’s my first pass at a pretty gnarly list that isn’t as tuned as it could be but has a lot of Sylvan flavor (i.e. legendary stuff):
Sylvan Kin [2300]
Forest Shamblers (Large Infantry) Horde (6) [260]
– Awakened Guardians [20]
– Brew of Strength [40]
Sylvan Gladestalkers (Infantry) Regiment (20) [185]
Sylvan Gladestalkers (Infantry) Regiment (20) [185]
Sylvan Gladestalkers (Infantry) Regiment (20) [185]
Hunters of the Wild (Heavy Infantry) Regiment (20) [140]
Hunters of the Wild (Heavy Infantry) Regiment (20) [140]
The Windborne [1] (Cavalry) Troop (5) [135]
– Wind Blast (7) [0]
Greater Air Elemental (Monster) 1 [180]
Greater Air Elemental (Monster) 1 [180]
Tree Herder (Hero (Monster)) 1 [300]
– Wiltfather [40]
– Surge (8) [0]
Elven Archmage (Hero (Cavalry)) 1 [150]
– Horse Mount [25]
– Surge (8) [30]
– Alchemist’s Curse1 [35]
Nimue Waydancer [1] (Hero (Infantry)) 1 [150]
– Fireball (10) [0]
– Heal (4) [0]
– Surge (4) [0]
– Wind Blast (5) [0]
Forest Warden (Hero (Large Infantry)) 1 [110]
– Inspiring Talisman [20]
– Surge (4) [0]
It has some meta darlings (2+ Gladestalkers, 2+ GAE, Wiltfather, Nimue, Archmage w/ AC4) but also some cool stuff (Windborne, Shamblers that might be able to fight) and a flat out meta pariah (Warden?!) for style. I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to take the Quicksilver Lancers whenever possible but I put in your Shambler horde instead and gave them CS2 so they can dream. The rally is neat too, when it comes into play.
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Pretty much as above really.
Might not take the Wiltfather upgrade and leave it as a regular herder - gives you RoL for the squishy stuff and 40pts to maybe give a HotW unit measured force and a couple of add-on artifacts?
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Thanks guys. That’s a super useful place to start.
What exactly are hunters of the wild? I’m looking through the lore and can’t find a description. Some sort of dryad or something?
Yeah - dryad types.
They get briefly touched on in vague terms in the background of the elf & FoN sections
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I prefer a normal Herder myself, but Wiltdad continues to be the hotness. Usually I give my Herder brutal, tho nimble for 35 is a pretty cute flex.
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With 3 full verdant units, the Wiltfather’s vicious aura is also really nice. It helps to make the Awakened Guardians a little more efficient as at 260 points you really want them to do work.
This list is not very different from what I am currently running.
Sylvan Kin 2300 [2300 / 2300]
~ List Valid ~
Sylvan Kin [2300]
Sylvan Gladestalkers (Infantry) Regiment (20) [185]
Sylvan Gladestalkers (Infantry) Regiment (20) [185]
Hunters of the Wild (Heavy Infantry) Regiment (20) [140]
Forest Shamblers (Large Infantry) Regiment (3) [120]
Forest Shamblers (Large Infantry) Horde (6) [205]
- Blade of Slashing [5]
The Windborne [1] (Cavalry) Troop (5) [135] - Wind Blast (7) [0]
Silverbreeze Cavalry* (Cavalry) Regiment (10) [185] - Fire-Oil [5]
Silverbreeze Cavalry* (Cavalry) Regiment (10) [180]
[Daiur “Shieldbane” the East Wind] Greater Air Elemental (Monster) 1 [180]
[Indrus the Wolf Wind] Greater Air Elemental (Monster) 1 [205] - Wind Blast (6) [25]
Master Hunter (Hero (Infantry)) 1 [130] - Axe of the Giant Slayer [15]
Nimue Waydancer [1] (Hero (Infantry)) 1 [150]
Tree Herder (Hero (Monster)) 1 [300]
- Wiltfather [40]
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Thanks. This is all really helpful. I’ll be coordinating with my sons, but we’ll probably run some combination of 2+ gladestalkers, 1-2 forest shamblers, 1-2 hunters of the wild, a tree herder, 2 GAE, and then some miscellaneous support characters.
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If you’re in the spot of supporting Mantic models, the new Northern alliance Half-elf kits make solid Gladestalkers. Their GAEs and Shamblers look really solid as well.
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I’ve been playing around with variations. What strikes me is that half the army (the gs half) wants to sit in cover and shoot, delaying combat, while the other half wants to scout up, box the enemy in, and engage on their half. How do you reconcile these two seemingly opposite goals? I’m struggling with list building because I can’t figure out if I’m delaying to shoot or board control/alpha strike.
The great thing about the tools available to Sylvan Kin is that they uniquely are able to do both. If you have a balanced list which includes our scouting anvils, they are able to move up, put on pressure and claim board space. This allows them to contest tokens, objectives, and table sections for various scenarios. Their goal isn’t as much about killing but putting pressure on the enemy that they could charge or simply be in control of important zones.
Another part of your army is supporting this pressure spot with solid ranged attacks. They can help punish wide-swinging flankers or soften up targets moving to engage your grindy trees.
While they’ve been nerfed hard enough to no longer threaten fronts, the Greater Airs will still be around to hit the flanks of those units that attempt to dislodge the Shamblers and Wiltfather etc. They are also still decent deterrents for units that want to go whole hog after the Gladestalkers.
Silverbreeze are arguably our last unit that sits above the curve and I’ll be leaning on mine heavily this year to clean up in later turns and be looking to snag Turn 6-7 objectives.
The biggest thing that this army does still is put pressure on your opponents. This is still very effective with a mixed arms list as they force opponents to choose what to deal with, your tough US that is in their face or your very effective shooting.
As an aside, Alpha is super not our thing. We don’t have a single proper hammer and our stuff that can get up there fast doesn’t have the hitting power to knock things out and continue to be a threat.
Play for all 6-7 turns, leverage your board position with scout and shooting.
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Thank you. That’s really helpful. For forest shamblers, do you prefer the horde or regiment version? And wiltfather or regular tree herder?
Regiments are great scouting chaff in front of squishier stuff, while hordes are a solid, but not spectacular offensive line.
Lots of the SK units are quite fragile and Heal isn’t overly present and/or it’s pricy, so LoR is nice to have floating around somewhere.
It can also come down to how much verdant you have floating around for the aura?
You could cover the board with CoD with WF, Green Lady & Nimue - which would be brutal against an opponent without wound mitigation, albeit not the most sensible approach!
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I like Shamblers in the regiment and the horde. As Sceleris has pointed out, the regiments do make really solid thick chaff. At -/14 def 5, it can take a bit of real commitment to shift them, especially in terrain. They also are cheap enough to take tokens and have that be their job. US 2 is solid for scenario play.
The hordes can sometimes be hard to justify but we also need the unlocks. They are tougher than Hunters of the Wild and allow you to unlock a hero and a Greater Air. A number of successful lists this past y we are did lean into them but it was more in Nature with Kapoka to give them phalanx.
If your line is made of Verdant units, the Wiltfather’s Vicious aura + cloak of death makes the battle line a stronger threat against more efficient anvils like def 6 or trash mobs.
Without cheaper access to Heal support, I think that the best reason to take the vanilla Tree Herder is if you have a specific job for him to do that requires an item or you are really hurting for the 40pts.
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