Death Vs. Sylvaneth

[Woolly.Mammoth]

Any tips on death vs Sylvaneth? I've only played one game so far, and lost hard because I didn't know Drycha is the best horde killer in the game.

Lot's of complaints right now in the tournament scene in regard to their popularity, Alarielle, Durthu, Drycha, Kurnoth and their forest-spam.

Has anyone had any success against a good Sylvaneth list?

 

[Unas the slayer]

Never faced them, however I know the theory.

Drycha comes with two flavors: flitterlies or squirmlings

Flitterflies - remember that, as written, Flitterflies damages Drycha...and also friendly units near her (this last is truly clear).

Squirmlings dont damage allies. If drycha brings squirmlings AVOID HORDES, use instead single models or elite units of few models...


In case of a Treeman ancient as general: it got 12 wounds, 3 up save... However at max wounds it has a total of 4 attacks, 3 sweeping blows and the instakilling impaling talon (only a danger when you are at 5 wounds and below).... Wound him to lower his stats and then get into close combat.



Woods: after successfuly charging one or very few models of your unit into the woods, dont move the others during the charge, and exploit pile-in. Piling in does not make you have to roll to see if your units die when they enter.


A sylvaneth tactic is to deploy a lot of woods
MAKE SURE TO SET UP SCENERY AS RECOMMENDED IN THE GENERALS HANDBOOK, each player takes turn roling dice for sections of the table which decide how many scenery pieces go in each section. Then they take turns either placing scenery, or choosing not to and lowering the number of each dice until it runs out. This is important as woods cannot be placed 3 inches of other scenery and have to be placed within 1 inch of each other.


Hope it helps

 

[Alabaster427]

I've never played Sylvaneth vs Death, but I play both. That being said, Drycha is a tough cookie. I watched (played) her kill a junior on that Orruk wyvern (not Gordrak, but the 500 point one) in one turn. However, at the time, both of us were misreading flitterfuries, so I wasn't rolling for damage on Drycha or any other friendly units. THAT being said, I think Death is probably best equipped to deal with them. We have an innate 6+ ward save for all wounds/mortal wounds. If you take the right command trait, this becomes a 5+. Additionally, we can dole out a lot of mortal wounds via ghost units and magic. The Carsteins are gross when it comes to spells. I played a game where I just had a bunch of zombies, a corpse cart, a mortis engine, and baby Mannfred as my general, Vlad/Isabella, and a necromancer. The zombies were 2+ to hit/3+ to wound, rerolling 1s for both, and piling in twice. It doesn't really matter what your save is, you're going to die, as did baby Karl Franz, Bela Kor, and several other units of both order and chaos. The Carstein spells are ridiculous and I chose the +1 to cast on the cart. You can also never go wrong with Death monsters like the TG (doesn't matter which) and the Mourngul. Because of their teleport shenanigans, I would suggest fast moving units. TK chariots or horsemen as your battleline and any character that can take a free mount, should (i.e. vampire lord that can fly or on horse; wight king on horse; necromancer on horse; etc.).

One tactic that once used against a Stormcast prosecutor list was to keep my units dispersed. They could only teleport onto the board if there was enough room for the whole unit to fit and no model could be within three inches of any enemy models. So I kept them just far enough away from each other that they couldn't teleport into my flanks but close enough together that they couldn't teleport into my ranks. The only way they were able to come in was in my rear, which meant they would be alone without support, or in my front, which meant they would either be killed right away or block his units from charging me. The same concept can be applied to the Sylvaneth and you even cast a bigger bubble. They have to be 9" away. If you keep your units spread out, then they won't really be able to teleport. On of my favorite things to do is teleport a full hp Drycha into my enemy and unleash hell.

 

[Aranei]

I played against Sylvaneth once during a tournament, and was defeated. My opponent didn't use Drycha, but he had a spirit of Durthu with a 2+ save and an ability to ignore enemy Rend (due to combination of a command trait and an artifact). He had a second monster, Treeman, with 3+, 5 shooty Kurnoth Hunters and dryads.
The 2+ save that ignored rend was impossible to beat for my army, so I could't kill Durthu. And he summoned a lot of forests, then kept teleporting the forests into my units, causing 1d3 mortal wounds for each forest. My Vampire Lord on a Zombie Dragon died like this.
The player himself told me after the game that the best Death unit that can be used against his army are the Spirit Hosts. He said that a Red Fury VL on a ZD is powerful to (mine was Ruler of the Night).
I personally think that a Mournghul is a good unit in this context, he can easily survive both Drycha and forests, and kill regular treelords (but slower than VL on a ZD).
Against 2+ ignore rend, any of our mortal wounds sources are good - terrorgheists + banshees (don't forget a Screaming Skull Catapult), spells, Spirit hosts (again).
Hope that helps!

 

[Sception]

Yeah, unfortunately there are a number of units in the game that just require ample sources of mortal wounds to deal with. Rend-immune 2+ saves shouldn't be a thing, but they are, and as long as they are you need to have things that deal mortal wounds.

As always, I endorse deathrattle stacking on necropolis knights. They generate mortal wounds, they're very tough, and have the best recursion, especially with a herald or two vaguely nearby. Winning by out-surviving just feels like the undead way to me.


Something like:
- Settra
- 2x Herald
- Necromancer (cursed book)
- Liche Priest
- 40 skeleton warriors
- 3 Chariots
- 3 Chariots
- 6 Necropolis Knights
- Warsphinx

I don't know, 6 knights might not be enough. Could always drop the sphinx for maybe 3 more knights and a corpse cart to make the casters a bit more reliable.


But if you actually want to kill things, even through rendless saves, as mentiond already there's always scream spam

Something like
- Ghoul King on Terrorgheist (red fury, cursed book)
- Necromancer
- 2x Banshee
- 3x10 zombies
- mortis engine
- 2x screaming skull catapult
- terrorgheist
- Mornghul

but personally I prefer skittles.

 

[Alabaster427]

But if you actually want to kill things, even through rendless saves, as mentiond already there's always scream spam

Something like
- Ghoul King on Terrorgheist (red fury, cursed book)
- Necromancer
- 2x Banshee
- 3x10 zombies
- mortis engine
- 2x screaming skull catapult
- terrorgheist
- Mornghul

but personally I prefer skittles.

I prefer the necrotect in place of one of the catapults. He allows the catapult to shoot at two different targets and gives one of your deathrattle units an extra 3" move. He also costs 20 points less than a catapult.

Yeah, unfortunately there are a number of units in the game that just require ample sources of mortal wounds to deal with. Rend-immune 2+ saves shouldn't be a thing, but they are, and as long as they are you need to have things that deal mortal wounds.

As always, I endorse deathrattle stacking on necropolis knights. They generate mortal wounds, they're very tough, and have the best recursion, especially with a herald or two vaguely nearby. Winning by out-surviving just feels like the undead way to me.


Something like:
- Settra
- 2x Herald
- Necromancer (cursed book)
- Liche Priest
- 40 skeleton warriors
- 3 Chariots
- 3 Chariots
- 6 Necropolis Knights
- Warsphinx

I don't know, 6 knights might not be enough. Could always drop the sphinx for maybe 3 more knights and a corpse cart to make the casters a bit more reliable.


But if you actually want to kill things, even through rendless saves, as mentiond already there's always scream spam

Something like
- Ghoul King on Terrorgheist (red fury, cursed book)
- Necromancer
- 2x Banshee
- 3x10 zombies
- mortis engine
- 2x screaming skull catapult
- terrorgheist
- Mornghul

but personally I prefer skittles.

 

[Aranei]

Yeah, unfortunately there are a number of units in the game that just require ample sources of mortal wounds to deal with. Rend-immune 2+ saves shouldn't be a thing, but they are, and as long as they are you need to have things that deal mortal wounds.

As always, I endorse deathrattle stacking on necropolis knights. They generate mortal wounds, they're very tough, and have the best recursion, especially with a herald or two vaguely nearby. Winning by out-surviving just feels like the undead way to me.


Something like:
- Settra
- 2x Herald
- Necromancer (cursed book)
- Liche Priest
- 40 skeleton warriors
- 3 Chariots
- 3 Chariots
- 6 Necropolis Knights
- Warsphinx

I don't know, 6 knights might not be enough. Could always drop the sphinx for maybe 3 more knights and a corpse cart to make the casters a bit more reliable.


But if you actually want to kill things, even through rendless saves, as mentiond already there's always scream spam

Something like
- Ghoul King on Terrorgheist (red fury, cursed book)
- Necromancer
- 2x Banshee
- 3x10 zombies
- mortis engine
- 2x screaming skull catapult
- terrorgheist
- Mornghul

but personally I prefer skittles.

Well, the necroknights will do too, even better then spirit hosts, possibly.

You know, Malisteen, you kind of infected me with the necroknight list idea. I was lucky enough to find 1 box of them, and bought it with 50% discount (for some reason). I have no idea where to find a second box.

Btw, I am bought them for Nagash list I am trying to assemble. Speaking of which, I think that Nagash can be good against Sylvaneth too, with his Black Armor and Hand of Dust.

Something like this:
- Nagash
- Tomb Herald (Banner)
- 6 Necropolis Knights
- 3 Ushebti (bows)
- Bone Giant
- Any one Spinx
- Necrotector
- Zombies for battleline (or possibly skellies?)
- 2, 4, or 6 banshees for summoning

This lets Nagash to cast 8 spells a turn ))

 

[Sception]

I have one to two boxes of partially-assembled necropolis knights (missing only their shields, which I'd prefer to save for another conversion project, though, I don't know, we could talk about it), that I am considering parting with, along with a mess of other stuff (some chariots, some converted skeletal demigryph knights, etc). I'm looking for dracoth riders, starter box dracoth heroes, and a starter box lord of khorne, or just money to buy the same. If you're interested, post a reply in my thread on the trading market sub-forum, and I'll get some pictures together.

As for Nagash, remember you can't attempt the same spell more than once per turn, so drop a few of those banshees for a necromancer and/or liche priest so that Nagash can channel their amazing buffs into those necropolis knights.

I still don't think it's worth his points cost overall, though. IMO Nagash is a display model for use in narrative games only.