Earlier this week I proposed an interesting thought experiment on my Twitter and it created some fun discussion. That question was “We all associate with one army or another (ex: myself and Daughters of Khaine). If you had to pick a different army and could do your hobby journey all over again which would you prefer to be associated?”. Some responses were very off the wall while others were still in line with what that individual enjoyed as far as army lore or aesthetics. In my post today I want to explore my answer and try to extrapolate what my Sylvaneth would look like today if that was the army I decided to run as my main army and essentially use as a brand on myself.
So what would the “Tayrathian Cult” look like if I played Sylvaneth instead? While I have no doubt that Taylor Swift will remain the basis of my core character for my army I doubt the name Tayrathi would have been used. I fancy the idea that “Tayriel Swiftvine” would have been her name in a throwback to Ariel from the old Wood Elf lore. Initially, my model of Tayriel would likely have been a Branchwych kitbash, but I have no doubt I would eventually redo the model based on the lovely Arch-Revenant kit.
Naturally, this would lead the army name to be “The Tayriel Wargrove” and based on lore alone I think I would have picked The Heartwood grove as a general theme for my army and pushed a Kurnoth theme as much as I pushed my Witch Aelf theme for my Daughters of Khaine. I also imagine I would keep to a Spring theme for my color palette, but there is a chance I would branch out and go for a twist on a summer theme and maybe add in some blues to give the army a touch of an oddity to show them being from The Mortal Realms.
For my Armies narrative, I would very much keep the theme I have with Tayrathi in how she has her own goals that while not against Morathi are very much not in her favor. Tayriel, being a soulpod carried by Alarielle from The Word That Was, would seek to bring about the rebirth of Kurnoth to give Alarielle a true companion and likely would mix in a bit of lore about the possibility of Tyrion being connected to the release of Kurnoth’s true soul for a bit of added Old War lore. Tayriel wouldn’t go against The Everqueen, but would believe she is doing what is best for her queen, even if this is not necessarily true.
Even though this is an alternate universe series of thoughts I already have plenty of kitbashing and conversion ideas for this army. I would easily have plenty of head swaps on my Dryads using Wood, Dark, and High Elf heads from my bits box as a nod to the unified Aelves who defended the forest during The End Times and would likely use Daemons as my key rival to keep this theme strong.
While I could easily continue to go deeper and deeper down this rabbit hole I feel it is best to leave it here as to not tempt myself to go and create this alternate universe army. Admittedly I have fallen in love with the idea of this concept and would love to see what your thoughts and answer to my original question would be so be sure to comment and share your alternate universe army.
Happy Hobbying and stay Stormcast Strong!
Chuck Moore