Tactical Options: Pure Sylvaneth vs GA Order

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Rebel Jai
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Tactical Options: Pure Sylvaneth vs GA Order

Post by Rebel Jai »

I've only had a limited experience with a Pure Sylvaneth Alliance list, as I usually mix Sylvaneth with Wanderers and other Order units. I'm much more used to having more options in the form of shooting and cavalry with a Grand Allliance Order list. I would bring Glade Guard, Waywatchers, Great Eagles, or Glade Riders along with units of Dryads and Treelords. Tactically, there seems to be more options to my list more shooty or faster moving. In Age of Sigmar, thinning down your enemy through shooting or spells becomes important against combat-effective enemy units. Despite the common combat blob in the center of the battlefield, the ability to manuever about the field can buy you time or spare some units from precious battleshock fails.
In a Pure Sylvaneth Alliance, I tend to be more combat/ infantry heavy (Dyrads and Treelords). With the ability to conjure Wyldwoods helps in manueverabilty.
What I like about pure Sylventh Alliance is the ability to take advantage of the extra Spell Lore per Wizard, as all of our Heroes have the Wizard Keyword. For my army, this gives me more options to either heal wounds or thin out the enemy. Grand Alliance Order has some capability to make your army more resilient (Battle Trait and some Artefacts), but Pure Sylvaneth grants you a variety of options to enhance your army's special abilities. Some artecfacts can heal wounds lost or make better use of the Wyldwoods (Moonstone, Acorn of the Ages, etc..).
In a Grand Alliance Order, only the Phoenix Stone mimics the characteristics of a Sylvaneth Army, by healing wounds lost. The Command Traits and other artefacts can make your army better in combat, but does little to take advantage of shooting or magic. A GA Order Army's best adavantage is to choose units with abilities that improve shooting or magic. Some Wyldriders, or Sisters of the Thorn can improve manuerability, while Glade Guard and Way Watchers improve on shooting. You will have to depend on your individual unit's abilties more in this type of Alliance. This army provides more tactics via units while Sylvaneth provides more tactics via Battle Traits and Artefacts.

I would love to hear more opinions from those of you that have experience with a Pure Sylvaneth Alliance and those that have optimised a Grand Alliance Order list.
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Rusty293
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Re: Tactical Options: Pure Sylvaneth vs GA Order

Post by Rusty293 »

The problem we have these days is that many of our units are only part of mixed order alliances these days. Off the top of my head there's Glade riders, war dancers, waywatchers, warhawk riders, forest dragons and even Orion to name but a few. As I want to use some of these units in my army and have no way of allying with either Sylvaneth and wanderers I'm forced to use mixed order. All said and done though I don't think it's too bad and to be honest with the order grand alliance being pretty solid in terms of rerolling battle shock tests and in it's magic items it does make things simple whilst allowing me to keep the flavour of the wood elves of old, which is more important to me ultimately. Plus being order grand alliance I can add in some of the things we lost like the old wood elf chariot (using the Swift hawk chariot) and even look to proxy my Glade riders as reavers (still not sure if I can bring myself to do this though yet!). I'm also converting up an Avatar of the Hunt as well as a Sacred Protector (old green knight from the Bretonian range) so really I like grand alliance order as it really opens up the options for your army.
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