The Sylvaneth are rousing from the forests and heading to war – No longer will Alarielle tolerate the intrusions of the forces of Nurgle. No longer will the trees be felled by mortals. This ancient force of nature is ready to strike back and take back the woods. Today, the 4th Edition Sylvaneth Battletome is up for preorder for Warhammer Age of Sigmar and in this full review we’ll be checking out the book, seeing what is new, what has changed with the units and check out how they play. We’ve also built and painted up the new Grove Guardian, an awesome new Priest for the Sylvaneth army.

Massive thanks to Games Workshop for sending us over the new Battletome and kit to check out on the site. If you would like to support the site then why not order your Sylvaneth goodies through our affiliate Element Games and save yourself some money too?

We’ve also done a full unboxing of the new Grove Guardian kit which you can see just below or over on YouTube

It’s not the only army with new stuff today though, we also have a full review of the new Daughters of Khaine Battletome and model releases – check that one out here!

But without further ado let’s take a trip into the woods and see what is new for the Sylvaneth.

Sylvaneth 4th Edition Battletome Review (2026)

The Sylvaneth Battletome is one that we have been looking forward to – they had a great book in 3rd edition, but they had a lot of moving parts and an element of trying to squeeze terrain onto the board in their 4th edition Faction Pack. Finally the new book is here though, and there’s lots of changes here to the core of the army.

Before we jump into the rules changes though, we have to give some love to the lore section of the book. Like with the previous Battletomes, the first half of the book is dedicated to lore and background and I really enjoyed diving into this while reading the review. There’s a nice mix of old and new artwork in here too, along with the gorgeous fold out maps we’ve been treated to this edition. There’s more hints to the return of Kurnoth too – I’m really surprised we didn’t see him come back this edition alongside the Kurnothi, but then that might be something that is waiting for a bigger range refresh further down the line.

Like with the other Battletomes this edition, the new Sylvaneth book has a really nice section that details each of the units alongside full shots of the models. I really like this and feel it’s a nice way of combining a bestiary alongside the model shots that would normally just be gathered in their own section. This makes it much easier for new players to identify the units but also tie lore to them, which is great from a narrative standpoint.

So on to the rules, and there’s a lot that’s changed here…

Faction Rules

From a Battle Traits point of view pretty much every mechanic has changed in some way. Let’s start with the big one first – The Creeping Undergrowth.

In the old book, the Sylvaneth were very reliant on trying to get as many Wyldwoods on the board as possible in order to take advantage of their abilities – Now things are a little different. For a start the Wyldwoods themselves are limited to just 3, and each wood is a single piece of the kit. You start the game with one as usual, and each of your hero phases you get to place another one until you have 3 down. Each of those pieces has a “Overgrown Terrain” token on it, and with the wood’s warscroll ability and various other abilities your units have the overgrowth can spread over the board to other terrain features. Depending on the number of different Overgrown Terrain features you have on the board, the range of your battle trait abilities changes too. It starts off with a range of 5″ when you have 0-2 tokens, up to 9″ then 12″ and finally covering the entire board once you have 9+ of them. Now it’ll take a couple of turns to get to that point, but by the end of the game you’ll be able to use all your tricks no matter where units are on the board.

So what does it do? Well just like the faction pack, at the end of any turn you pick every Sylvaneth unit that is within the Overgrowth range. What’s changed though is that you can actually get models back with this working in the same way as a Rally – this is very cool and combined with the other healing abilities the Sylvaneth have makes them very hard to shift.

In addition they now have a really cool rule “Creeping Dread” – at the start of each turn you pick an enemy unit within the Overgrowth and if they are not within 12″ of a hero then the first command ability that they use costs two command points – this is a really annoying ability and can be used to really grind down the cp that the other side has available.

Speaking of Command Points there’s a couple of new abilities that the Sylvaneth have access to. Firstly, in the enemy combat phase you can spend 1cp to give a unit in the Overgrowth strikes first, which is very nice!

In addition your infantry now have a recycling mechanic – you can spend 1cp at the end of the turn to return a destroyed unit with half models. This only works on your infantry (Revenants and Dryads) – but when you bring the models back you place them in the Overgrowth, meaning you can essentially get a unit destroyed in order to leapfrog them onto an objective for example.

Their movement shenanigans may be gone, but there’s lots of cool stuff you can do here to make playing them more interesting.

Battle Formations

Battle Formations have also changed quite a lot! If you are still running a Tree Lord heavy army then you still have Lords of the Clan to make your healing more reliable, but we now have access to 3 brand new formations.

Outcasts is a very good one – this makes the Creeping Dread rule even better and meaning that the unit now spends extra CP if it is more than 6 from a hero rather than 12! I can see this being a solid pick for most people

Followers of Kurnoth is pretty non-nonsense – this has you pick a unit in your hero phase, and as long as the model is within 12″ of the enemy general or Warmaster then they get +1 to hit – this is amazing making it like a free all out attack with no downsides!

Glade Defenders is also pretty good, especially when you start to discover just how good Sylvaneth are at bringing back dead units. For every one of your units killed in the previous turn you get to give a unit +1 attacks! This or Outcasts I think will be the most popular ones.

Heroic Traits

Again most of these have changed somewhat for this edition. We still get Spellsinger which can be used to add 1 to casting rolls – however this time round you only make a non-wizard able to Unbind rather than making them a Wizard 1 – this makes it far more useful to put on a caster.

As for the other two we have Spirit of the Dark Forest which is a once per Battle ability that halves the movement of an enemy hero – which is handy at times!

The other id Realmroot Guide which brings back some movement schenaigans, but this is also once per game – It lets you pick the unit with the trait and another unit within combat range to teleport to the Undergrowth (which don’t forget can be anywhere on the board if you grow it enough) – could be a nice way of stealing an objective late game.

Artefacts of Power

On to Artefacts, and we still have the Seed of Rebirth – Sadly it still triggers on a 3+ rather than all the time, however this time around you get D3 health rather than just 1.

Amberglade Nectar is a pretty handy one, but it is a once per game ability – you pick an enemy unit within 6″ and all Sylvaneth (including companions) get +1 damage on that target for the turn!

Finally we get the Wychwood Glaive and this is very good – any unit that has damage caused by the wielder subtracts 1 from saves for the rest of the game! Stick this on Durthu and hack of the enemy armies armour…

Spells

The Lore of the Deepwood gets a massive refresh in the new Sylvaneth book, and there’s some really nice stuff here!

The first spell Jade Thorns is amazing – it makes a Sylvaneth unit +1 to wound (including their companions) and on top of this it has the Unlimited keyword too meaning multiple wizards can cast it! This is going to give the Sylvaneth some serious punch!

Zyphyrspite Rush is another handy spell that allows your units to charge after running, and Grasping Roots is a spell that will annoy – it stops enemy units running and makes them -1 to charge.

All of the Manifestations are easier to cast too, and can be placed 12″ away too! We’ll have a look at what the spells do later in the review.

Prayers

Yes, Sylvaneth now have Priests and some pretty good Prayers to boot!

We start with another really good one (that is also Unlimited too) Song of the Lost, which makes a target unit -1 to wound, and on top if the cast goes off on an 8+ you also make them ignore save modifiers if they are not a monster. If they are a monster you instead heal them 3, but still a very good prayer you can chant multiple times a turn.

Song of War is very good too, it lets you add 1 to the rend of a target unit, and if you chant high enough you get to pick 2 units! Combined with the tricks you can do to reduce saves this is really nice for getting through thick armour

Finally we have Song of Dread – this makes an enemy unit that moves into the Overgrowth take D3 mortals, again very handy once your Overgrowth covers the battlefield.

Sylvaneth Warscrolls

So let’s take a look at the units and check out what changes have happened – there’s quite a lot that has been updated here so we’ll just call out the big changes

Alarielle is cheaper now but has had a couple of tweaks to her rules. Firstly she drops down to a 4+ save but gains a 5+ ward. She also now has control 10, which is handy. She also does extra damage on the charge with her spear, which makes her a lot more offensive. Her healing has now gone into overdrive through, with her healing 2D6 every turn! Her ability to return from the dead only works on herself and now costs 2 CP to trigger – so you’re going to want to make sure you hang on to a couple of CP to make sure you can use it – thankfully you can opt to use it while she is dead, so once you have fresh CP you can just bring her back. The big one here is that it no longer involves a dice roll but instead always goes off – but it’s now once per game. Metamorphsis is interesting, it now makes the closest terrain feature overgrown which is cool! Finally she now has a suite of abilities she can pick from each turn – such as add 1 to casting for friendly wizards and priests, allowing Sylvaneth to retreat and charge and not take wounds from the retreat or even allow you to pick 3 targets with Creeping Dread. I really like her and think she is going to be pretty good.

Belthanos has had some tweaks too – He now gives all friendly Kurnoth +2 movement while they are within 12″ and in addition at the end of the turn he can teleport to the Overgrowth as long as he made a charge

The Lady of the Vines now has 10 wounds and a 5+ ward save which makes her more survivable, in addition to still having the spell for a ward bubble. She can make a terrain piece Overgrown once per game, and can also measure range and line of sight out of any Overgrown token. She also has extra rend on her ranged attack!

Drycha has had a big revision in the new Sylvaneth book, losing her ranged attack but now has Slashing Talons with 2 rend and Crit 2 hits and a bananas 20 attacks with her Spites with crit mortals! Her aura of terror stops enemy units running or retreating within 9″ and her spell now does D3 mortals to 3 enemy units in the Overgrowth. She also has an amazing ability that has her measure charge rolls from any terrain feature with an Overgrowth token. So for example if you can somehow get a terrain feature in the enemy deployment zone Overgrown, then Drycha can charge out of that terrain even if she is on the other side of the board – amazing unit!

The Grove Guardian is the new kid on the block and a dedicated Priest. She’s very much a support character – any revenant models slain within 12″ roll a number of dice equal to their health, and each 5+ does a mortal wound to the target. What makes this really good is her ability to bring dead models back with their prayer – she has 2 casts, which makes it pretty easy to get this off on the boosted version which has you pick 2 units and bring back D3 models if they are revenants or Dryads, or a flat 3 heal if not. Really like her and she’s got some bite if she ends up in combat too!

The new model is ace too and an absolute joy to paint up!

The Warsong Revenant is the other Priest in the army, they still have a 12″ 6+ ward aura, but in addition they allow a priest to reroll a chant of a 1 – which is very good!

The Arch-Revenant was a weird one previously as he really paired well with Kurnoths rather than Revenants. Now he is very much a Gossimid Commander – as he charges into combat he allows a friendly unit of Gossimids to shoot the target he is charging, and then immediately after fighting he can make a 2D6 move! Really interesting now.

Treelord Ancient is now a really good unit for making Treelords and Durthu even better! In the combat phase he can make each Forest Elder (All your Tree-units) +1 to hit if they are in combat range. On top of that, once per turn he can return a dead unit of Kurnoths or Forest Elders into an Overgrown Token. This only returns a single model (so is better on Tree-folk) and costs you that Overgrown token, but means that if you have a Treelord heavy army you are going to be able to bring them all back!

Durthu is now a little faster at 6″ and gains an extra attack with his sword (Though the damage drops to 4) – He also gets +2 to charges as long as he will end up within 1/2″ of a hero – which is good for comboing with the Ancients ability to give him +1 to hit. He can also make Infantry or Cav strike last.

The vanilla Treelord sees a few small tweaks in the new Sylvaneth book, now with a chance of making unit -1 to hit if he allocates damage with his shooting attack. he also gets a new rampage which kills a model in combat with him if he can roll over their Health stat.

The Branchwych loses her ranged attacks, but can now select a unit within the Overgrowth (no range, just needs to be able to see them) and make all Sylvaneth add 1 to wound rolls!

Dryads are better now too, hitting on 3s and being -1 to hit and wound if they are in the Overgrowth.

Tree Revenants now get +1 damage if they have not charged, making them a great unit to defend objectives. They also get 3 attacks each, giving even small units a little punch.

Spite Revenants on the other hand now get to teleport to the Overgrowth in the movement phase, and then get +1 to their charge rolls.

Kurnoth Hunters are now faster with movement 6, and they all subtract 1 from enemy rend if they are in the Overgrowth. They all have different roles now too – Swords do Mortal wounds on the charge, while Scythes cause mortals to units charging them. Meanwhile Bows now get +1 to hit as long as they stand still, making them great shots now. The bows also get extra rend against Cav now too.

Spiterider Lancers now have crit 2 hits and extra damage on the bugs, and now at the end of a turn they can teleport out of Combat and into the Overgrowth, making these a fast scouting unit.

Revenant Seekers on the other hand now have a different role, reducing the attacks of a unit they are in combat with.

Gossimid Archers now wound on 4s rather than 3s, but otherwise work the same way they used to.

The Twistweald get some pretty nice glow ups to their stats – Melee weapons are now consolidated across the unit with them all getting 3 attacks with 1 rend. They also have Crit 2 hits if they charge too! What’s really cool though is they can infect units they are in combat with, making them only able to move a maximum of 6 inches when non-charge moves! Great to slow down fast enemy units.

The Gladewyrm is still our anti-Manifestation and Anti-Wizard unit, but now it also gets the same benefits against Priests too!

The Spiteswarm has changed now – it’s kind of a gun turret – it doesnt move and has a ranged attack with 5 attacks with crit 2 hits the turn if goes down, increasing to 15 attacks in future turns!

The Vengeful Skullroot is very useful now, reducing 1 from hit rolls of enemy units within 6″

Finally the Awakened Wyldwood has changed quite a lot too – Importantly they now do affect the line of sight of friendly Sylvaneth. This can make a difference, though realistically there’s less of the table covered with them now. Also, in each battleround you get to place an Overgrown token on the closest terrain feature to each tree that is not controlled by an enemy (Alarielle has a rule that can override this an allow you to pop them on terrain controlled by the enemy too). They still do mortal wounds in the combat phase too!

Sylvaneth Spearhead – Spitewing Flight

We get a new Spearhead in the book that really leans into the fast and agile side of the Sylvaneth with the Spitewing Flight, this has an Arch Revenant, a unit of Gossamid Archers and a unit of Lancers and Seekers. The RRP of kits in this box comes to £152, so some decent value on this one too!

This one has some interesting mechanics where you pick a quarry to try and kill each turn, and for each time you destroy one you get a new cumulative ability starting with +1 to run and charge, then +1 to hit and finally +1 to wound. The trick here is going to be picking the correct Quarry so that you can stack these as soon as possible.

Path to Glory

I’ve been waiting a long time for a Sylvaneth Path to Glory, as I feel there’s some really nice conversion opportunities, and I’m not disappointed with what we have on offer here.

You have the option here for basic infantry or making them a Forest Elder – meaning you can do some cool stuff like a Treelord Priest, or a Treelord dedicated healer for example. Things get even more interesting for Infantry as you can give them mounts – you have the option of a Dragonfly, but there’s also the option for a “Greatspite” which is a large monster with 12 movement and 14 health – perfect opportunity to convert up a Sylvaneth Forest Dragon…

As ever we also get 2 new paths for Heroes and Non-Heroes.

Sylvaneth Armies of Renown

The Sylvaneth get 2 new Armies of Renown in the new battletome.

Up first is the Lords of the Clan – this consists of The Lady of the Vines and Forest Elders. You start the game with 3 Wyldwoods on the battlefield, and you can opt to leave Tree-folk off the board at the start of the game. You can then opt to remove a Wlydwood in the enemy movement phase and replace it with one of your Tree-folk you’ve left off the board, or even a destroyed one! Essentially the Wyldwood on the board comes to life and becomes a Treelord, which is a really fun mechanic!

But dont worry, you’re not limited to your 3 Wyldwoods, as they get their own Unlimited spell to summon a new one with a maximum of 9 (!) allowed on the battlefield at once!

I think this could be a really fun one to run, especially if you have all the Tree Lords!

The other option is the Soulpod Guardians – this is the other extreme and leads into your Revenant units, along with a Grove Guardian and Branchwych. They get 3 Wlydwoods formed into a single terrain piece as the “Sacred Grove” and while your units are within 12″ of this Grove the most damage your units can be allocated each phase is 10 – combined with your healing abilities this makes this a real tarpit of an army to try and chew through, which is a very different playstyle for them!

I like that both of these feel very different to the vanilla list and each have their own fun little gimicks.

Finally we also get 2 Regiments of Renown – the first is Drycha and 2 units of Spite Revenants – these are not visible to enemy units while they are within 3 of a terrain feature and give terrain features an Overgrown token while they control them, which is cool to interact with their abilities.

The Twisted Branch is the other one consiting of the Twistweald and a Branchwych, these get to be placed within 6 of a terrain feature at deployment, giving you a great scouting unit off the bat. The Branchwych can also heal the unit with a new spell.

I think they both have their uses and a nice excuse to take some Sylvaneth models in another order army.

Summary

So what do I think of the new Sylvaneth Battletome? A lot has changed here, and I think it’ll take players a couple of games to find their feet with the removal of some of the movement gimmicks. There’s still interesting stuff you can do with movement, but you’ll be doing them in different ways and with different units – The army does look like it’s going to be a lot more fun to play though, I love the Overgrowth mechanic and you’ll see a real ramp up in power as the game goes on and more of the terrain is overgrown. I also feel that a lot of units have been given some real love with profile changes, making some units that you wouldn’t previously have taken much more desirable! I’d have loved Kurnoth to return, but hopefully that still happens in the future! Even without that this is a great book and I’m excited to play some games against them.

The new Sylvaneth Battletome is up for pre order today and is released Saturday 11th April.

Games Workshop provided Sprues and Brews with free copies for review purposes.