AoS 500 pts vs. Sylvaneth

[Cinnabar]

We’re starting a local escalation league for AoS. I’m playing my first game against Sylvaneth, who I’ve never played against. I’ve only played a single game using Seraphon. I have everything in the start collecting box, the Starclaw Strikehost, and a few other things. Open to any feedback at all.

General: Skink Starpriest. Trait - haven’t decided. Artifact: Incandescent Retrices.

5 Saurus knights with lances
2x10 skinks with blowpipes and shields
3 Ripperdactyls
Balewind Vortex
Quicksilver swords
490 points total

My approach is to deploy the toad on either a buffing unit, caster, or a warlord. Castle up the knights with the starpriest towards the back. Cast balewing vortex, cast summon starlight on the ripperdactyls, and, if need be, use lords of space and time to put the rippers in the back field to take out enemy buffing units. Similarly use quicksilver swords to take out buffing units. Otherwise, play hit and run to take objectives, then run away.

 

[LizardWizard]

You will have a hardtime dealing with the objective game if your opponent is able to spam out their Sylvaneth Wyldwoods. This means you want to effectively zone the neutral objectives and try to force your opponent to deploy on the side they placed their woods before setup if you have that option.

Make sure you read through the rules related to Citadel Woods and Sylvaneth Wyldwoods. It is important to know how they will impact the match. Particularly in respect to line of sight.

Your main objective turn one and in deployment needs to be to deny your opponent viable locations to place additional Wyldwoods. Their army will likely have two methods to do this. One is restricted to having to place the wood more than 3" from any other unit or terrain pieces. This one is summoned through a sorta prayer mechanic on the Treelord ancient and cannot be unbound. The other is a cast spell. You will want to save your unbind for this version. The casted woods can be placed outside of 1" of all other terrain and units. Thus is is much harder to actually zone and you might be reliant on the unbind. Additional spells to be aware of are Roused to Wrath from the Branchwraith. This spell allows them to summon a unit of Dryads in their woods and more than 3" from the enemy. The upside for you is that they won't have the points to bring both the Treelord Ancient and the Branchwraith at only 500 MPP.

At the moment your list has difficulty killing a Treelord Ancient quickly. You might consider adding in some more Ripperdactyls if possible to help you bring it down. If they go with a more troop heavy list then you should be fine with the units you have.

I like the Quicksilver Swords a lot.

For command traits I tend to find that Master of Star Rituals outshines the other two Skink options.

Best of luck!

 

[Cinnabar]

This is incredibly helpful. My opponent mentioned that he only has one wyldwood given the cost. I read the gist of what it does. Thanks so much.

 

[Wilhelm Stürmer]

@Cinnabar I'm curious how this battle went. Our local GW is starting up a Grow League as well, and I've got a Seraphon Start Collescting box currently, but your list has me considering the purchase of the Skinks and Ripperdactyls.

 

[Cinnabar]

So, I actually played 2 games tonight. The only change I made to my list was to take the Doppleganger Cloak from Ulgu (Skink Starpriest can’t be targeted by melee unless it swings first). My opponent took 2 units of dryads, a branchwych, and a treelord.

Immediately getting the Balewind off helped my with the inital buffing. The Ripperdactyls are about the only thing with decent damage output in the list. I really couldn’t hurt the treelord but I made sure that I didn’t let him swing at my start priest. I kept teleporting skinks to his backfield to his backfield but couldn’t get off a 9 inch charge. If I could have on turn 3, I would have won. Hilariously my Skink shooting killed his Branchwych.

Second game was the same list against Stormcast. The quicksilver swords killed his Lord Castellant after 2 rounds. I should have killed his Lord Celestant on turn one (did 16 wounds from just 2 Ripperdactyls because the toad was nearby, but he made 13 saves). The knights were really weak. Despite only having a unit of skinks and the Starpriest on the 5th round, I made it very close but teleporting and then moving the skinks on to a back objective tying up the game. Despite losing both games, I had a lot of fun. Skinks and Ripperdactyls are both just really effective and frustrating for your opponent.

Edit: Clarified writing a bit.

 

[LizardWizard]

Yep, it makes me sad that Saurus are very lack luster (unless in Fangs of Sotek), but Skinks are king atm.

 

[Wilhelm Stürmer]

Thanks for the update. What Trait did you end up choosing? Why did you pick the Doppleganger Cloak over Retrices?

 

[Cinnabar]

Per LizardWizard’s suggestion I took Master of Star Rituals as my command trait. I had much lower than average rolls for it to go off in both games. I chose the cloak because I assumed that there would be little shooting and that, if I was careful, I couldn’t even be touched. I was right.