I had exactly the same dilemma as you, so I test rode both, me and a friend took them out and did 20 miles on them a month or so ago.
I went for the Trance in the end, it was way more fun going down, more comfortable overall and like you I had a budget of 2k so the black Trance 2looked much nicer than the white and green Anthem 2
Wrote about it on my blog I did
Anthem 27.5 vs Trance 27.5
I’ve already got a 29er (Fargo) which will be my main non-suss xc machine now as I’ll strip the 456 down and recycle the bits into a bike for my wife.
I was tempted by a 2013 Anthem 29er at 400 quid off, but well the Trance won me over 🙂