Tag Archives: Wood Elves

Wood Elves – Waywatchers

Posted on by
Wood Elf Waywatcher, from Warhammer Quest, art by Ilacha (c) Fantasy Flight Games

I remember when Waywatchers first came out for 4th Edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle. I was working for GW at the time, in one of their retail stores. Nothing captured the imagination of a potential Wood Elf player quite like the idea of super stealthy sniper archers, impossible to see, impossible to target, but will kill you from a distance if you just walk close enough to their little patch of forest.

Over the years, that vibe has really stayed with the unit. If you’re reading this, I’m willing to bet that you’re nodding and saying “hell yeah, Waywatchers are what got me into Wood Elves” or if not you, then it’s that other Wood Elf player you know. They are so core to the identity of the Asrai as we know them today that it’s hard to imagine the game without them.

So, how are they in the Old World? Sadly, they have been overburdened by the powers that be with enforced leadership: they can no longer be fielded without taking a Waystalker, an 85 point hero-level character. That means I really have to view them in the context of how they are actually fielded in a list, and including the Waystalker in my overall thoughts on the unit.

My initial impression is: Waywatchers are cool and can do a lot, but the Waystalker makes them a real points sink and you’re probably better off using your models to count as Deepwood Scouts instead. Let’s see if I can convince myself that I’m wrong 🙂

Waywatchers

Let’s start with the troops themselves, and I’ll really base this as a comparison with Deepwood Scouts because these troops play a very similar role in army composition. Both units are likely to be deployed in cover, in the enemy half of the board, with a goal of shooting off chaff, war machines, or possibly heavily armoured units or foolish lone characters.

For 16 points a model, they are BS5 and I5, and otherwise have the same stats as the Deepwood Scouts (who cost 13 points base). They share a bunch of the same special rules–Elven Reflexes, Evasive, Fire & Flee, Move Through Cover, Scouts and Skirmishers–and I go over how those are used in the Deepwood Scouts article. However, you do get two extra special rules which are very thematic and an improvement over their Deepwood brethren: Feigned Flight and Ignores Cover. With Feigned Flight, you automatically rally after you Fire & Flee, which is a huge benefit for a unit that will typically be deployed away from the main body of troops (and thus out of range of either your General’s Inspiring Presence or your BSB’s Hold Your Ground special rules). Ignores Cover does exactly what it says on the tin: no modifiers to shooting at targets behind cover–it’s half of the benefit of Trueflight arrows, although you’ll still suffer penalties for moving & shooting and long range.

So, for an extra 3 points a model, it’s definitely a tempting upgrade to choose Waywatchers, even though they don’t have any rules relating to their lore about being epic at concealing themselves (which is right there in the description in Forces of Fantasy!) I’m guessing the optional ability to give them Ambushers special rule (+1 pt per model) is meant to represent that, but Ambushers is a terrible rule and you should never use it–a 50/50 chance each turn of being able to deploy is really annoying and actually kind of giving an advantage to your opponent: just stick with their Scout ability. Likewise I wouldn’t bother paying the extra 1 pt per model for Vanguard, just deploy them as best you can with Scouts and save the points. The other final optional upgrade is Veteran, which doesn’t seem that useful to me: you don’t want these troops in combat unless it’s late game and they are coming in to help mop up or provide some last gasp combat support (they are expensive troops with T3 and no armour!), and they automatically rally from a Fire & Flee roll (you pretty much always want to Fire & Flee when charged!). However, if you’re facing a lot of Terror causing enemies, or lots of chaff and you need fight out a combat or two, then maybe? Again, doesn’t seem worth the points to me.

An extra 6 points gets you a Sentinel, the champion, who has BS 6 (same as the Glade Captain!) and can take 25 points of magic items. You might think Asyendi’s Bane is worth taking, but I’d say probably not–you’re getting Quick Shot for 10 points and a 50/50 chance to kill yourself if you miss. Likewise, the Wailing Arrow is a waste of points (you have to hit and you have to wound and all it does is cause a Panic Test for 20 points), so I’d only take the champion if I happened to have 6 extra points at the end of list building as I don’t think it significantly improves the unit’s performance.

And so we get to the only really important decision you’re making, which is what arrows the Waywatchers will have. I’m going to ignore Moonfire Shot because getting Magical and Flaming Attacks is very situational, and if your situation calls for it, you’re probably better putting them on Glade Guard. Trueflight Arrows seem a bit wasteful at first glance, because you already have Ignores Cover. It also grants Quick Shot, which means two things: no penalty for moving and shooting, and you can Stand & Shoot (or Fire & Flee) from any distance. However, I don’t think you want to let anything get close enough to you that you can’t Fire & Flee (remember that Fire & Flee has a flee distance of 2d6 drop lowest, not 2d6 like a regular Flee), so I wouldn’t recommend Trueflight, as much as I love them. So this leaves Hagbane Tips (for Poison), Swiftshiver Shards (for Multiple Shots (2)) or Arcane Bodkins for AP -2. I think Hagbane is actually a better choice for Deepwood Scouts, because you’re hoping to roll 6s anyway, and it doesn’t take advantage of the better BS of the Waywatchers. Giving them Shards for +2 points is kind of like giving you the shooting equivalent of two Deepwood Scouts when you think about it: you get two shots at -1. I think this is probably a fine choice if your main job is chaff hunting, as chaff tends to be lightly armoured and lower toughness. Bodkins are also a good choice, as the Waywatchers’ higher BS means they are more likely to hit those armoured targets, meaning you’re hoping for a 4+ or 5+ to wound, and they’re only likely getting a 5+ or 6+ armour save. However, all of these are dependent on the number of Waywatchers you’re taking and what their role is … and that comes back to how many points you’re spending, which brings me back to the Waystalker.

Waystalker

The first time you read the Waystalker’s Hawk-Eyed Archer special rule you think “Cool, this guy can snipe enemy characters in units!” but as the recent FAQ has shown us, the enemy characters are all going to get a Look Out Sir! save (on a 2+ the hit goes on the unit). That being said, there are still plenty of opportunities to shoot Lone Characters who aren’t in units, or late game when units have been whittled down to fewer than 5 rank and file models. It’s currently pretty popular to have a fighty character on a Monstrous Cavalry mount because they get the 360° charge arc (due to being Skirmishers), and then keep them within 3″ of a Cavalry unit in order for them not to be targeted–Bretonnians especially like this build with their Royal Pegasus. A Waystalker can still target those characters without any Look Out Sir! concerns. However, they really won’t do much damage to those characters, who tend to be T4 or T5 and have 3+ or 2+ Armour Saves. Even if you give them the Bow of Loren so that they get two shots, the FAQ states that they’ll only shoot one enchanted arrow with the Bow, and then switch to normal arrows to shoot the second shot (why? no-one knows–the idea that they have two different quivers with different arrows in them seems absurd). So, realistically they might plink a wound off a character if you’re lucky. Other than that, they are a shooting-focused hero character with all the same special rules as Waywatchers, and BS7, for 85 points. Realistically, this means they are going to help Waywatchers in the same battlefield role they are already playing: chaff/warmachine hunting, or targeting armour and occasionally getting some extra hits on a lone character.

The Math of It All

So, is it worth it? I want to look at the actual math of shooting with Waywatchers + Waystalker versus a Deepwood Scout unit costing the same number of points. Obviously the more Waywatchers you’re taking, the lower the ‘Waystalker tax’ is in terms of percentages, but to reiterate what I said in my article about Treemen, the Waywatcher points are coming out of the Rare slot and so have to compete with other units that are very solid. Working backwards, I’m going to assume that in a 2,000 point list, you’d want to take 1 Treeman and 1 Great Eagle, and in a 2,500 point list you’d want 2 Great Eagles. That leaves 225 and 285 points available respectively for Waywatchers, so I’ll test out both values of unit.

225 points of Waywatchers at 18 points a model (16 + 2 for arrows) gives me 12 Waywatchers and an extra few points for a Sentinel. 285 gives me 15 + Sentinel. We’ll keep the arrow choices the same per unit when doing the calculations. For Deepwood Scouts, at 225 points I get 15 Scouts (no champion) and 19 at 285 (again, no champion). However, the Waystalker with special arrows is 88 points, which translates as 5 extra Scouts + a champion, so I’ll be calculating the odds using these totals.

Army Size Waywatchers Deepwood Scouts
2000 (225) 12 w/Champion + Waystalker 20 w/Champion
2500 (285) 15 w/Champion + Waystalker 24 w/Champion

Vs War Machines

For target, let’s choose my perennial “favourite” the Dwarf Cannon. It’s T7 with 3 wounds, and likes to kill Treemen, so it has to die first. I’m going to assume we are at long range or have moved into short range, which is pretty common, and that we’re using Hagbane because our primary mission is eliminating war machines (again, my most common use case). Most war machines have a similar profile, so it’s a good sample.

Not counting the re-roll for the Waystalker/Sentinal, the Waywatchers on average will do 2.89 wounds (and I’ve just realized that the Mathhammer app we wrote needs to have BS re-rolls added to it!), but a quick back of the envelope calculation tells me that the rerolls should inch the result up to that 3 Wound mark. For the Scouts, they are averaging 3.95 wounds, so let’s call it 1 Wound more. For the larger units, the disparity is greater (about 1.1 wounds).

(Maybe the units need to be smaller? Minimum size is 5, which would put the points cost at 178 including Waystalker … if I give them a champion, that’s 184, which allows me to get 12 Scouts. The wounds disparity is still in the Scouts favour, by about 0.88 wounds or so.)

Clearly, just for war machine hunting, Scouts seem better. If the target is behind partial cover, the Waywatchers will ignore that, but the Scouts will drop down to doing 3.34W, and if behind full cover, it drops to 2.81W … so shooting at stuff behind full cover (-2 penalty to hit) is where Waywatchers start to shine here.

Vs Chaff

What if we want to clear out chaff? Let’s give them all Swiftshiver Shards and see how good we are killing stuff with no armour save. For target practice, we’re using Chaos Warhounds–cheap, fast, and T3 chaff that are pretty common in the otherwise elite Warriors of Chaos army. For this calculation, I’m going to assume that the chaff unit is coming at us, to try and engage the unit in combat, and thus has moved within charge range (i.e. short range).

At the 225 point mark, the Waywatchers will get 26 attacks at -1 for multiple shots, so hitting on 3s (with the Waystalker getting 2 rerolls hitting on 5s, and the Sentinel getting 2 rerolls that hit on 6s) – I’m calculating around 9.2W on average, which will delete pretty much any Warhounds unit, or at least reduce it to unusability. The Scouts will get 40 attacks hitting on 4s (3s for the champ) which I’m calculating out around 10.2W. For the higher points value, again the wound spread increases in favour of the scouts.

However, as soon as the chaff is behind cover, the math swings dramatically in favour of the Waywatchers–at the 225pt mark, the Scouts drop to ~6.9W for partial cover, and a measly ~3.5W if behind full cover. I’m starting to see a pattern here …

Vs Armour

As a final check, let’s see if giving them Bodkins will change the odds in the Waywatchers favour. We’ll shoot at a unit of Knights of the Realm, who are T3 with a 3+ armour save–whittling these guys down is a good use of Bodkins, because T3 is going to result in more wounds than trying to shoot the T4 models such as Grail Knights.

Let’s have them be at short range (arrogant knights!), and we’ll vary the cover just as we have done in the previous iterations. The Waywatchers will all be hitting on 2s, I calculate ~3.4W to the Knights for the 225pt unit, and ~4.2 for the bigger unit. Meanwhile, the Scouts are doing ~4.1W and ~4.9W respectively. Again, without cover, the superior number of the Scouts does more for the attack than the superior BS of the Waywatcher cohort. However, as soon as cover is introduced, the Waywatchers shine: the Scouts drop to ~3.1W and ~3.7W respectively for partial cover, or ~2.1W and ~2.5W when the Knights are behind full cover.

Conclusion

You know, it turns out I have actually talked myself around somewhat on Waywatchers. If you don’t give the Waystalker any magic items (probably a good plan) and just run him as if he’s a super-champion in the unit of Waywatchers, then it turns out there is a specific use for the unit above and beyond what Deepwood Scouts can bring, which is either Chaff or Armour Hunting when those units are behind some type of cover (although it doesn’t matter much if you’re hunting high toughness war machines, because you’re rolling for 6s to trigger that Poison). Cover is pretty common, even if it’s just other models, and there are also a number of spells that provide it, so it’s definitely going to be something that comes up in games.

I also think there’s a psychological aspect to the Waywatchers, and Waystalker in particular, that is hard to put into math. When your opponent knows that you can snipe at things, it can make them think and play differently, even if the math is actually not that great. The risk of losing wounds to a sniper, particularly if you managed to get a wound with your Arrow of Kurnous shot, can really rattle an opponent and make them play sub-optimally.

So, Waywatchers, you’ve earned your spot back in the army. Plus you look cool as hell 🙂

What do you think? Do you play with Waywatchers? How have they performed for you in your battles?

Originally written for rankandflank.com.

Wood Elves – Stag Night!

Posted on by

In 8th edition, I was a big fan of the Great Stag, I think partially because I’m Irish and we literally used to have the enormous elk walking around on our island (albeit 15,000 years ago).

Seeing the Stag back in our army roster made me want to think of ways to build characters for a really hard hitting and fun unit to play with. With all the various rules about characters joining units, I was a bit worried about not being able to make anything work, especially because the Stag is on a 50×50 base, and Wild Riders are on 30×60. However, Monstrous Cavalry units can join cavalry or infantry no problem, just not the other way around. However, there’s also a rule that says you can’t have more characters in the fighting rank than you have rank and file troops, so this was another restriction to work into my thinking. In the end, I’ve settled on a unit of 9 Wild Riders, in 3×3, with two Stag Riders, one on either side. This seems like it will work well enough, as it’s only 190mm frontage, which isn’t too bad in terms of being able to fit into places, and it meets the requirement to have the command group in front, while also only having 2 models out of 5 being characters. It’s also likely that both characters will get to attack the enemy, as the Wild Riders themselves are only 90mm wide – most units are at least 120mm wide when in Combat Order. It means not getting any rank bonus, but the highest bonus I could get is +1, so that’s not a huge deal.

Here’s a visual to get an idea of unit sizes. The dashed square is 12″ per side.

5 wide 3 deep
3 wide 3 deep

Building the Stag

The Great Stag is pretty cheap at +50pts, it gets two attacks, plus an impact hit and a stomp, all at S5, and everything but the Stomp gets AP -1 and Armour Bane (1). It also grants the rider +1 T and +1 W, which is a nice bonus for our T3 Elves. Finally, and critically, it has Armoured Hide (2) which means that your Armour Save goes up by 2. This is one of the few ways we can get a 2+ Armour Save in the army, starting with Light Armour and Shield, and using magic items to get the final +1. There are several choices for that last +1:

  • Armour of Destiny: 70 points, but swaps out the Light Armour for heavy, AND grants a 4++ ward save. Glade Lord only, obviously.
  • Bedazzling Helm: 60 points, gives a +1 Armour Save and puts opponents at -1 to hit the wearer. Still Glade Lord only.
  • Helm of the Hunt: 50 points (so can go on a Glade Captain), gives +1 Armour Save, as well as +1 A and +1 WS on the charge.

Not a fan of the Bedazzling Helm, just given how expensive it is. So that leaves me with the other two as choices. I’d also rather be able to take two Glade Captains and save the points, but that would mean only have a 3+ AS 🙁

But before we get into building the characters, I have to decide if one of them is the BSB or not. Wild Riders can take a magic banner already, but taking the BSB gives me at least +1 combat res, and potentially more depending on the banners I take. I like the idea of the equivalent of 1 (or more!) free “wounds,” so I think I’ll put the BSB on one of the Stags and give him the War Banner. I could give him the slightly cheaper Banner of the Eternal Queen, but it requires being close to a forest, so for the extra 5 points, I think the War Banner is the sensible choice. So, what banner do I give the Wild Riders themselves? I think there are three options: Razor Banner (giving +2 Armour Bane to everyone), Banner of the Hunter King (now the unit can Vanguard, all the better for getting into combat ASAP) or the Wildwood Banner (making the unit cause Terror). There are pros and cons to each, but I think I’ll take the Hunter King banner, because I don’t want this unit being shot at a lot, I just want them to smash hard and they already have a good amount of AP built in. So, for 50 points, I get +2 combat res, and get re-rolls on my break tests. I’m hoping I never have to roll any of those! I’m not 100% sold on it yet, but let’s try it out …

In terms of build, what do I want this unit to do? It’s really for wrecking my opponents combat blocks, so I’m going to focus on trying to optimize for that. I’m mostly concerned about annoying blocks of high armour/toughness infantry blocks like Dwarfs and Warriors of Chaos. So, on the Lord then, let’s start with Armour of Destiny for that very sweet 2+/4++, and now I’m T4/W4. I only have 30 points left to spend on the remaining magic items. However, I’m also pretty happy to just give the Lord a Great Weapon to make him S6. He has Strike First, which will cancel out the Strike Last, putting him on flat I6, which goes to I9 on the charge. Only something else with Strike First will hit him first in that case. Looking around, there’s not much else worth taking for 30 points, so I’ll leave it at that. For the BSB, I’ll give her the Helm of the Hunt, and also a Great Weapon, and see how that goes.

OK, let’s roll some dice and see how we do!

Mathhammer

Assuming the unit gets to charge, I’m going to work out how well it hits against a unit of Warriors. Obviously we should expect the Stag Night to do well given that it has a lot more points in it. I’m assuming the Warriors have T4 and a 3+ Armour Save.

We get two Impact Hits at S5, which is 0.72 wounds. Then the Lord will hit with 4 attacks at WS7 S6, resulting in 1.47 wounds. Then the BSB will hit also with 4 attacks (+1 from the Helm), also at WS7 S6, so another 1.47 wounds. Then the Wild Riders will go, 10 attacks (1 each, +1 for the champ, +3 for Furious charge, +3 for Frenzy) at WS 5 and S5 with AP -2 AB (1), resulting in another 2.37 wounds. Then the mounts go, starting with Stags: 4 attacks at WS 4, S5, AP -1 AB (1) gives another 0.72 wounds, then the Steeds of Kurnous will add another 0.25 wounds. Before Stomps happen, we’ve done 7.72 wounds … this is significantly over 5, which is the normal width of a unit of infantry, so I feel pretty good that there will usually be no attacks back. Then the final two stomps happen, to get another 0.44 wounds on average. With a static combat res of +3, that’s averaging a 11 combat res (vs say 4 from the rank bonus, close order and a banner).

I think for this to be worthwhile, it would need to be able to justify the points versus just having a similar width of Wild Riders. So, a unit of 12 Wild Riders in 6×2, running with the War Banner would do an average of 5.0 wounds on the charge … much more likely to be attacked back and then lose a model.

Cost for 12 Wild Riders with the War Banner and FC: 382pts with shields

Cost for the Stag Night: 785!

It’s really hard to justify spending that much to get such a small incremental benefit, especially as the 2+ AS on the stags only counts for shooting, if I give the characters great weapons. If I only give them cavalry spears they do fewer wounds. I do think there’s a good build of a Lord as a solo rider, with the Helm of the Hunt, but I’m not 100% sure what it would be and it’s going to pale in comparison to the fighting power of putting the same Lord on a Dragon instead.

I think we will get some special rules in the Arcane Journal which will allow us to build a Wild Hunt-style list (probably with Orion, would be my guess), so this is kind of in preparation for that. Maybe we’ll get some more rules that will make this a bit more viable (e.g. maybe our characters will be able to take the
Hunting Spears that the Wild Riders have) but for now I think this one sits firmly in the category of “very cool, but not very competitive” camp 🙂

Have you used the Great Stag? If so, what was your build and how did it go? Let me know in the comments!

Originally written for rankandflank.com.

Wood Elves: Treemen

Posted on by

Yes, despite everyone asking me for articles on Special units, I’m going to start with Rare. Why? For a few reasons:

  1. There are only three of them
  2. Special has a huge amount of units
  3. Rare points are way more restricted
  4. What you use from Rare potentially changes your build a lot
  5. I love Treemen

First off, I’m gonna include Treeman Ancient (which I may shorten to TMA at times) in this discussion and I’ll often use she/her pronouns in this article when referring to the Ancient, which may seem weird. The reason is that my main Treeman model is the old Ultraforge Treewoman, who is very feminine looking, and I’m just in the habit of referring to her with those pronouns. I’m not excluding any other Treefolk 🙂 Her name, btw, is Ioreth.

Ioreth with her first paint job. She’s been repainted since, but I haven’t photographed her.

In the rare slot you have 3 choices. Waywatchers, Great Eagles and Treemen. Each of these comes with some restrictions: Waywatchers require a Waystalker (an additional 85 points minimum), Great Eagles can be up to 3 per 1,000 points, and Treemen are just expensive points-wise at 215. Given that you can have max 25% of your army in Rare, this means you have to be careful what you spend your points on. You’ve got a limit of 500/625 in 2000/2500 point armies, so you have no way to take three Treemen without also taking an Ancient. At 2000 points, you can only have 1 Great Eagle if you take 2 Treemen, which likely means you are only taking 1. At 2500, it’s easier to fit in both, and still have enough for either a decent Waywatcher unit or 2-3 Eagles, but not both. Figuring out which, if any, of these combinations you will take is something to think about up front, because it’s where you are most restricted. Special and Characters can both take 50% so usually that’s not an issue, however running 2 Treemen plus a TMA is a big points commitment – 695 minimum, and likely more like 800 after customizations – so there’s a lot to think about when building an army with that many Big Trees.

Two Treemen?! I hear you exclaim, or three?!! Well, before you jump to the conclusion that I’m crazy (I probably am), let’s go through the Treeman stats and special abilities and talk about why they are good, their weaknesses, and what unique properties they bring to the army. Then we can talk about the correct number to take (which, as we’ve now determined, is somewhere between 0 and 2, plus somewhere between 0 and 1 TMAs (yes, I hear you heckling that you can take 2 TMAs, but I’m guessing you won’t after reading this article because of other limitations … ))

Special Rules

First I’ll go through what’s common between Treemen and their Ancient friends, and then I’ll talk about the differences (there aren’t many, but it does change their battlefield role a lot).

Treemen are Behemoths on 50x50mm bases (or up to 50x75mm, but all mine are on 50×50, which is definitely the preferred size for fitting into tight spaces and having fewer opponents able to strike back at you, so try to put yours on those if you can). As a Behemoth, they are Lumbering, which means they can’t join any units, but they also get a free 90° pivot after a regular move (i.e. not a charge, march or flee move). This is something to use to your advantage with their Strangleroots attack, among other things … more on that later. It also means that their Stomps (of which they get D3) are Thunderstomps, and so have AP -2.

They have a 4+ armour save, and a 5+ regeneration save (which they lose if your opponent has flaming, because they are counted as Flammable). They are Close Order, which just means they don’t get to count as Skirmishers (it doesn’t grant a +1 combat bonus as some seem to think, see p100 in TOW rulebook for an explanation as to why). Edit: The latest FAQ now means that Treemen do get +1 combat bonus because they are Unit Strength 5 (or 6 for TMA). Yay!

They are a Large Target, making them easier to shoot at, which means you need to keep an eye on your enemy warmachines to help prevent them from taking too much fire before they get into combat. This is particularly important for flaming attacks (mostly from Dwarfs/Chaos Dwarfs) … if you’re consistently facing these opponents, you’ll need to hide your Treemen behind buildings (or your free Woodland Ambush forest) while your fast movers or Deepwood Scouts take out their cannon. Dwarf Rangers with a Runesmith are also problematic, but thankfully slow moving, so just stay away from them if you can.

Like all Tree Spirits, they have Tree Spirit (duh), Magical Attacks, and Move Through Cover. The Tree Spirit rule is mostly just a bit of annoying bookkeeping: you can’t use your General’s Ld if the model is an Elf. Magical Attacks have limited use in the game, but they will cancel out Regen saves for Daemons (and allow you hit Ethereal units like Hexwraiths). Move Through Cover is of less use to Treemen mostly because you can’t actually take cover in a Forest, or rather, you don’t get any benefit from the cover in there. However, it does make it harder for your opponents cavalry to charge you by being in the trees (they’d be Disrupted), while you’ll have no penalty for charging out, so bear that in mind. (Edit: it’s been pointed out to me that you’ll still have to choose the lower of two dice when charging, you just don’t suffer the -1 M penalty … this kinda stinks and I hope they FAQ it, but those are currently the rules!)

They are Stubborn, which is great – you know that the first combat you’ll be in you won’t just Break from static combat resolution, which gives you time to bring in some other units. Number one rule of playing as a Wood Elf: never fight alone! And finally if your Treeman does eventually die, there’s a 50/50 chance they’ll fall on top of the enemy unit due to the Timmm-berrr! rule. A regular Treeman also has Armour Bane (1), something the TMA does not get (they get Lore of Athel Loren and are a L2 Wizard), but more on both these later.

A Treeman can take up to 50 points of Spites, and TMAs up to 100 points. What you do with them will depend on how many Treemen you take. We really only have four to choose from (two of the Spites give Terror and Magical Attacks which Treemen already have, and the other one is for Elves only), and you can only take each once. Annoyance of Netlings can only be taken by a TMA, and I recommend you take it, as it’s only 15 points. I think a Murder of Spites is a Waste of Points (d3 S2 AP -1 hits for 25 points), so that just leaves Befuddlement of Mischiefs (30pts) and Lamentation of Despairs (20pts). Both are worth taking. If you’re only taking one Treeman, give them both Spites. I’ll talk about why further down. If you’re taking more than one Treeman, pick which one will get which, but do take them both.

They do have some other special rules: Treewhack and Terror, plus their attacks of Oaken Roots and Strangleroots. I’ll start with Terror, and talk about the others after, as we get into battlefield role for both Treeman and TMA.

Combat

The Treeman on paper outshines the TMA in Combat, having WS 6 (vs 5) and 5 attacks (vs 3), but losing a point in both BS (4 vs 5) and W (5 vs 6). The BS is only really important when it comes to the Strangleroots attack, the somewhat unexpected ranged attack that your Treemen can use, especially to stand and shoot. It is D6+1 shots, but that’s -1 because of Multiple Shots, and if you’re standing and shooting that bumps up to -2, meaning a regular Treeman hits on 5s, but the TMA hits on 4s. These are at S5 AP -1, so not bad (and Armour Bane (1) on the regular Treeman, don’t forget!).

Treemen, are of course, slow and flammable, which are their two main weaknesses. Initiative 2 means they will likely go last, often even when charging, so you want to be picky about when they charge as best you can be. Keep them away from Dwarf Runesmiths! Shoot those guys with extreme prejudice!!

As my opponent brings units up closer to my Treeman, I like to try to move the Treemen out to the flank of their units if I can, and shield them from a charge with some cover (or some Dryads), rather than charge or accept a charge from them. Remember, you’re playing Wood Elves – our job is to dodge, run around, and make it hard to be hit … play the game on our terms, not our opponents! Being able to jab them with Strangleroots is a great way to do this, and definitely an area where the TMA shines. When you combine this with a Magic Missile or two, the TMA is actually pretty decent at range.

When you do finally get into Combat, first remember to check for a Fear test (this won’t happen too often, as it’s only models with unit strength lower than the Treeman (5, or 6 for the TMA)).

Once you’re hitting, the Treeman’s Oaken Fists hit at S5, AP -2 (and again, Armour Bane (1) for the regular Treeman), so they are no slouch. You’re also getting D3 Thunderstomps at the end. If you’re facing lower initiative models, particularly if they have multiple wounds, then this is the time to use a Tree Whack. Swap one of your Oaken Fists attacks for this special one, and you force one of the models in a unit that you’re in combat with to take an Initiative test. It’s important to remember they don’t need to be in base contact, so I’ve used this on Damosels who are hiding in the back of a Lance formation for instance–it’s especially good on Wizards as they tend to have whatever the base Initiative is for the faction, often 3 or lower, and obviously great vs Dwarfs or Ogres. If they fail the test, they take D3 S5 hits, with no Armour Saves (they get ward/regen still). Not bad, eh? This is also where Befuddlement of Mischiefs comes in handy. In addition to making your opponent fight at WS -1, it makes them Init -1, so they are more likely to get Whacked!

Treeman Ancient

I think the TMA makes an excellent General, because they are Ld 10 and a Large Target, meaning you’ve got an 18″ command range for that high leadership. They’re also very hard to kill, which means you’re likely conserving points for both the model and keeping your general alive. And EVERY model in the army can use their leadership (whereas your Tree Spirits can’t use an Elf’s leadership). I run Ioreth as my General in every game.

Also, the TMA can still shine in close combat, even with only 3 attacks, because they are a Wizard and have access to Battle Magic. Hammerhand is the Signature spell, giving them 2d3 S4 AP -2 hits, which helps make up for fewer attacks. It goes off on a 7+, so it’s pretty likely to be cast even if you don’t take any extra levels of Wizard on the TMA. Battle Magic also gives you access to Fireball to use in the Shooting phase alongside the Strangleroots. The rest of the lore is pretty useful, so it’s been my default for the TMA to date. I’m experimenting with Elementalism, which is more of a supporting lore for the rest of the army, rather than making the TMA useful on their own. I’ll probably do a separate article about Magic Lores later, when I’ve had more results. For now, I’m recommending Battle Magic for the TMA. Oh, and you remembered to take the Annoyance of Netlings on the TMA, right? So all your opponents attacks are at -1 to hit, when you’re in a challenge. It’s not an essential part of the kit out, so if you have another character that you’d rather take that Spite on, that’s probably OK.

The Terror Bit

Treemen cause Terror (and thus also Fear), and are themselves Immune to Psychology. Terror can be a very useful weapon in your arsenal, mostly because it puts extra pressue on many units, forcing more and more dice rolls. Remember, a Battle Standard Bearer’s Hold Your Ground special rule DOES NOT apply to a Terror test, so your opponent typically only gets one roll at this (unless they are Veterans). Even an Ld 10 unit will fail their Terror test 1 in 12 times, which means this will work to your advantage more often than you (or your opponent) might think. For reference, the more common Ld 9 will fail 1 in 6 times, and Ld 8 will fail almost 28% of the time (Ld 7 is ~42%!)

This is why I recommend you always declare charges with your Treemen first: your opponent must immediately take a Ld test, and if they fail they must flee. Then you can use your faster moving units (e.g. the Great Eagle, or cavalry) to charge into that fled unit and just wipe them out.

Earlier I mentioned taking the Lamentation of Despairs, and this is where it comes in handy. You have to be within 6″ (the big downside, 9″ would’ve been so much better!) but it gives an additional -1 to the Ld of every unit within that 6″ bubble for the purposes of Fear, Panic or Terror. As you can see from the numbers in the last paragraph, that -1 is a big deal. There’s another magic item that can be taken by one of your Elf characters (Wraithstone) that does the same thing … any unit touched by both bubbles will be at -2 Ld, so now your Terror becomes a really potent weapon.

If you have multiple units able to cause Terror (like, say, 2 Treemen and a Treeman Ancient) and you’ve got the Lamentation and the Wraithstone, you could be causing several units to just turn tail and flee before they ever even get into combat. (We also have a Spite AND a banner than give Terror, so you could easily have 4-5 Terror Causing units to really lean into this type of build). You’ll need to have Great Eagles, Warhawk Riders, or perhaps even some skirmishing Glade Riders close by to run them down (heck, any cavalry will do, but these ones will probably be the most capable given their greater manoeuvrability). I think there’s probably nothing more Wood Elfy than having the forest suddenly come alive and scare the living crap out of your enemies so that you can kill them while they flee and make sure they never step foot in Athel Loren again!

Summary

Phew! If you’re still with me, well done! I think Treemen are underrated and people don’t take them terribly seriously (everybody’s hot for Dragons right now too). However, at T6 with 5 or 6 Wounds and a 4+/5++, they are very survivable, and the can fit into small spaces to hit flanks or force advantageous charges for you. Give them a try, and try 2-3 on the battlefield at once, if you can. I think you’ll enjoy it!

What’s been your experience with Treemen? Let me know in the comments!

Originally written for rankandflank.com.

Wood Elves: Deepwood Scouts

Posted on by

Cover Art is “Stealth” by Hector Becantur

Apologies for the delays to this final write up on Wood Elf core units. I’ve been busy getting the play test version of a roleplaying game finished (if you’re interested, it’s called The 23rd Letter and you can join the play test / Discord over on LateGaming.com), and now that’s out of the way I can compose my thoughts on what I think is probably the #1 choice for Wood Elf core, the Deepwood Scouts. For core, Scouts are restricted to one unit per 1,000 points, but don’t be afraid to make it a big unit if you only have one!

The statline for Scouts is identical to Glade Guard, but they cost an extra two points each. For those two points, Scouts lose Open Order but gain a bunch of extra Special Rules. Let’s start with Skirmishers, which is only upside for the role you want for these archers. Most of the downside for Skirmishers comes when you put them into combat, but you really don’t want your Scouts in combat anyways. As Skirmishers they get a 360° firing arc, and are at -1 to be hit by your enemy shooting–when dealing with unarmoured T3 Elves, you want every bit of advantage you can get in this regard!

Speaking of not being shot at, they also gain Evasive. Combined with the awesome range of the Asrai Longbow (32″ in case you’d forgotten), this means you’re able to shoot at enemies more or less with impunity. If you’re at long range, you can set yourself up at ENEMY_RANGE + 1″ away and shoot at the enemy unit. On the next turn, they are forced to move if they want to shoot at you (-1 for moving, -1 for long range), you’re skirmishers (-1 to hit) and with Evasive, you get to Fall Back in Good Order if they declare a shot on you, which most likely would take you out of range anyways! That means most troops (BS3) are hitting the Scouts on 7s. Now to be clear, you really don’t want to be at long range, but the same principle applies for being at short range. If you’re at 15-16″ away, you’re at long range for most other missile troops. So the enemy commander has to decide if they want to try to move into short range when most likely you’ll skip away and keep them at long range anyways. And if you have a forest at your back (and thankfully, Wood Elves get to bring one along) then you can flee into the forest and get an additional -1 for the cover.

If someone does sneak (or most likely, fly) into range for a charge, you’ll get to Fire & Flee, which is almost always the right thing to do because you’re not likely to beat too many things in combat and will end up fleeing anyways. Sadly this is not Feigned Flight (that’s a Waywatcher talent), meaning you’ll need to rally with a Leadership roll, so I think you need to keep an eye out for those pesky fliers and shoot them down if they come too close.

Finally, and obviously, they also get the Scouts special rule. My suggestion is to put them into a forest, which may sound obvious but I’m always shocked by people not doing the obvious thing. Place your Woodland Ambush forest in your opponent’s half and put scouts in it. In fact, you can probably put all your scouts in it if you have more than one unit. Obviously this depends on scenario, opponents deployment, etc. etc. but it’s a good rule of thumb!

That then leads us to the question, what role are the Scouts playing in your army? I think their number one use is to eliminate enemy warmachines. It’s hard to hide a warmachine from Scouts and still have it be effective in the battle. And of course, the ultimate arrow for taking down warmachines are those tipped with sap from the Hagbane, for some excellent Poisoned Attacks for an extra 2 points per model. Some quick Mathhammer will show that 16 shots at short range, or 18 at long range, will do 3 wounds on average to T7 warmachine with no armour (yes, Dwarfs are a little tougher needing 18 and 21 respectively because of their light armour). Would I take 18 Deepwood Scouts in my army? Absolutely (in fact, I’ll likely take two units of 15-20 depending on points). They’ll easily fit within the free Wood Elf forest, and they’ll use up more than half your Core allowance doing it.

Scouts: Woodland Ambush

Here’s a quick screenshot from Herald (my battle reporter) showing a 12″ x 8″ forest with 30 scouts skirmishing in it. These are 1/2″ apart. You can fit more in obviously, and likely these couldn’t all see the enemy without first moving, but that’s fine. They’re safe in turn 1!

For command options, Scouts are limited to a champion only*, who can take a magic item up to 25 points. The only option that might be worth taking is Asyendi’s Bane, to give a re-roll to hit (with a nasty downside if you miss again) but the cost of that is 16 points (6 for the champion and 10 for the magic item) at which point I think I’d rather just have another Scout.

*as you can see in the comments, I just read this completely wrongly! I don’t think I would take a Standard on the unit, mostly because it makes the Scouts even more of a target for a combat unit to come take them out, for no real bonus (it can’t be magical, and I think that’s what confused me). I would probably take a musician, for the +1 to Ld when Rallying, given that you have Fire & Flee.

Deepwood Scouts are only 3 points cheaper than Waywatchers, but Waywatchers are just hard to fit into the army because you have to pay for a Waystalker first (85 points base) and then you are competing with points in the Rare section – Treemen and Great Eagles, both of whom are good choices. Compare with Scouts, who are Core, this is a no-brainer for me. Sadly the only character who also gets the Scouts rule is the Waystalker, so these brave Elves are out on their own!

This is my last article on the Core choices, as I’ve now covered them all. Having played more games and learned more about the rules, I think my original choices still stand in terms of ranking, and I’ll list them out here for good measure.

  1. Deepwood Scouts
  2. Glade Riders
  3. Glade Guard
  4. Dryads
  5. Eternal Guard

That’s not to say you can’t or shouldn’t take models at the bottom of the list! It’s more to say that from a pure numbers standpoint, I think the models at the top are more likely to perform well for their point cost than those at the bottom. Thanks for reading! If you’ve got ideas for other articles you’d like to see, let me know!

Originally written for rankandflank.com.

Wood Elves – Eternal Guard vs Gors

Posted on by

Edit: see my article in Eternal Vanguard for how I think Eternal Guard should be used, following the FAQ on Drilled.

After receiving some feedback that my article on Eternal Guard was perhaps too harsh, I thought I would look into how well they would perform in a 1:1 situation against a similarly pointed Infantry unit. In this case, I’m choosing Gors from the Beastmen army, something that we can assume every Eternal Guard (EG) unit would fight at some point, fluff-wise. I’ll look at what happens when EG get the charge, and then what happens when Gors do, and I’ll use a unit of 15 EG, the minimum number needed to get the full rank bonus. 15 EG costs 210 with full command, assuming no other upgrades – 225 with Shields. I’ll check to see if Shields make much difference also. For the same price (213 points), the Gors get 28 models with full command, so I’ll run the Gors 7 wide and 4 deep for maximum combat resolution. I’ll test them out with shields vs extra hand weapons (their two options).

Eternal Guard Charge

With I4 and Elven Reflexes, the EG will definitely be going first. They are running 5 wide in order to get their maximum combat resolution, so 10 models will get to attack, +1 extra attack for the champion. Hitting on 3s and Wounding on 5s, they’d get 2.45 wounds on average, which means 2 dead Gors. The Gors get to attack back with only 5 models out of their front rank, with extra hand weapons and a champion, so 11 attacks back hitting on 4s and wounding on 4s, so 2.31 wounds on average, killing 2 EG. If the EG have shields, this drops to 1.85 … still likely to take 2 casualties, just a little less probable.

The EG inflicted 2 wounds, are Close Order and have a banner, but now only have 1 full rank for rank bonus, so have a score of 5. The Gors inflicted 3 wounds, have a banner, are Open Order but are a Horde and can claim a rank bonus of +3, so have a score of 7. The EG will lose by two, and Fall Back in Good Order due to their Stubborn rule. They can use the reform as part of FBIGO to go wider, but they’d almost certainly lose any rank bonus then. Let’s assume they go to 6×2 in order to get all their attacks in on the next turn. However, the Gors will now count as having charged, giving them a Strength bonus (their special rule) and an Initiative bonus. Clearly, the EG will break on the next turn after being outnumbered more than 2:1.

If the Gors have shields instead of extra hand weapons, they’d drop to doing only 1 wound, which would make the combat a draw. Next turn the EG would attack first, and kill 2 more, and the Gor would kill 1 more and it would be a draw again. This would then come down to luck of the dice as to who would win.

I don’t think there’s much point in working out the result if Gors charge, clearly it will be in their favour. But what if we just need more Eternal Guard static combat resolution to work this out?

More Eternal Guard

If we have a unit of say 30 Eternal Guard, who are running 6 wide and 5 deep, (440 points with shields and FC) facing against a similarly pointed unit of Gors – I actually get 60 Gors at that price point, which is kinda ludicrous. Not sure I’d ever have a unit that big, but let’s do it for the sake of argument. Let’s go 10 wide and 6 deep, and say the EG get to charge.

13 attacks, hitting on 3s, wounding on 5s nets 2.91 wounds, so 3 Gors die. There will be 15 attacks back (7 models still alive in the Fighting Rank, extra hand weapons, plus champion), hitting and wounding on 4s, which will average 3.14 wounds (2.49 if they have shields), killing 3 EG. EG will still have their full rank bonus and being Close Order will have combat res of (3+3+1+1) 8. Gors will have (4+3+1) 8 also, so it will be a draw, or the EG might win by 1 if they have shields. However, this kind of attrition combat definitely favours the unit with more models, and if the Gors are the ones who charged, the EG are pretty much toast. They’ll go second taking 19 attacks (8 in base contact, 2 supporting, plus champion) and be wounded on 3s, resulting in 6.33 wounds, so only fighting back with 6 models and losing by a bunch.

Conclusions

Look, these are all contrived examples. In a real battle, there is terrain, other units to support, and so forth. However, knowing the math of combat against common foes helps every Wood Elf player make good choices about what their units can get engaged with. Taking on a similarly pointed infantry unit 1:1 is probably not a good plan for Eternal Guard, which again then puts me back to my conclusion that they are not optimal for the points value. Stubborn helps, shields help, but if my opponent took Eternal Guard, I’d see them as a juicy target of easy points.

Originally written for rankandflank.com.

Wood Elves – Glade Riders

Posted on by

The penultimate unit in Wood Elf Core is Glade Riders. They are the only non-Infantry core choice, and have the same stat line as a Glade Guard but, being mounted, are M9 and have an extra attack at WS 3 for only 7 points more.

They are Light Cavalry, with the Fast Cavalry special rule, and the choice of being used in Skirmisher or Open Order formation. They also have the Fire & Flee special rule built in (which costs an extra point for Glade Guard, so really the pony is only costing you 6 points).

Like the Glade Guard, they can take all the different types of arrows for an Asrai Longbow. I think here the choice is much more meaningful, depending on the role you intend the unit to play. I think there are a lot of potential roles for Glade Riders, as they are very good, cheap, fast cavalry. The obvious examples are as chaff/chaff removal, and war machine hunting. A unit of 5 is only 90 points, which, while not the cheapest chaff in the army, is still not bad. You can forego any magic arrow if they are just playing a chaff role, although Trueflight probably would make sense for just an extra point per model, thus giving you a much better chance of picking off a couple of wounds before charging the opponent’s chaff unit. For war machine hunting, I think you need more models, or perhaps two units, and give them Hagbane tips for the Poisoned Attacks.

Some units in the army can also be given Ambushers (this seems like a bad choice, given how unpredictable the rule is), Drilled or Reserve Move. Both of these latter two seem like they would be better on a larger unit, rather than a 5-model chaff unit, but they come with the caveat that this unit is T3 and has no armour saves, and so any kind of points spent here are also easily lost if you don’t protect them well.

Drilled is not something you’d take if you’re going to run them as Skirmishers, but that got me to think about what way it might work. Perhaps in a block of 12, so you could have a 3×4 marching column, march 27″ on turn 1 (yes, 27″, with as many wheels as you like and remembering that they get no penalties for moving through cover*) and pivot at the end of the march (thanks Fast Cavalry!). Then on your next turn, you declare a charge into squishy things (like War Machines) in the back line, Redress the Ranks to put 7 in your front rank, and 5 in the rear and get your full (+1 for Light Cav/Open Order) rank bonus. However, while this seems like it’s very fun in theory, I think the reality is that this unit will die to whatever shooting or magic missiles your opponent has, and that a unit of 12 with Drilled will cost you 240 points which you’d probably rather spend elsewhere.

Reserve Move seems like a decent rule for a unit that wants to perform flank / harrying role in the army, and I think this is probably one of the better roles for this unit. Being able to skirmish forward, shoot, and then move out of charge range/arc is going to be very annoying for your enemy. It also allows them to be positioned for a supporting / flank charge to help out your other units–remember Wood Elves more than any other army want to be charging with multiple units into the same target. However, I’ve a feeling they can perform this role pretty well without spending the extra +2 per model it costs to give them Reserve Move. It was pointed out to me that this special rule is only +1 point, so I think it’s likely auto-take on most units, so that you can shoot and still move 18″.

And the final role I see for them, and the one I think they’ll be used for a lot, is as a screen. Running a unit of Glade Riders in front of your Wild Riders not only prevents the Wild Riders from being directly targeted by enemy missile fire, it also stops the Wild Riders from making disadvantageous charges due to their Frenzy special rule.

Overall, I think running multiple small units of Glade Riders is a pretty effective way to spend your Core points. In a 2,500 point list, taking 3-4 units of 5 will eat up 3-400 points of that Core allowance, and give you some very fast moving units–they’ll die easily, but in the end, better them than something else in the army!

Of the five Core choices in the army, I rate the Glade Riders at #2 in the list. They are a pretty good choice, moving fast and forcing your opponent to deal with a minor threat with a lot of range, as long as you remember how easily they will die.

*After posting this article, it was pointed out to me that Glade Riders are the only unit in the Wood Elf army that don’t have the Move Through Cover special rule. I’m assuming this is an oversight and will get fixed in the Errata for Forces of Fantasy (I’ve also added it to the list of FAQ/Errata stuff I’m tracking). Any opponent who forces you to play without it should have their name written in the Book of Grudges–oh, crap, wrong army!

Originally written for rankandflank.com.

Wood Elves – Eternal Guard

Posted on by

UPDATE

I’ve since found a good role for Eternal Guard, check out this article!

If you want to keep reading, by all means. However, my opinion is quite different since first writing this!

It’s taken me a while to figure out the role for Eternal Guard, and actually it’s only really been as I’ve tried to write this article that I think I’ve figured it out. However, I’m not convinced it makes them worth taking.

Eternal Guard are the other melee infantry Core choice for Wood Elves (after Dryads). With Light Armour and optional Shield for a point, they can have a 5+ Armour Save, which is as good as it gets for the Wood Elves (who apparently just hate the idea of living long enough to make Heavy Armour). At Weapon Skill 5, they are a little harder to hit in close combat than your average Core unit in any army, but they start at the pricy 13 points per model.

Like they Dryads, they are Stubborn and have the usual Wood Elf rules of Elven Reflexes and Move Through Cover. They are a Close Order unit, also get Martial Prowess, allowing them to make supporting attacks no matter which arc they are fighting in – a minor and situational buff. They have Asrai Spears, which are just like regular spears but with AP -1, so they are fighting at Initiative 6 when charged in the front (4 base, +1 from Spear, +1 from Elven Reflexes), meaning they’ll be simultaneous with I3 models such as Boar Boyz, Knights of the Realm, etc.

For an extra point per model, you can give them Veteran and/or Drilled, both having the restriction of only one unit per 1k points. All of this sounds great, until you remember a couple of points, and those points are Strength and Toughness 3. All of this leaves me asking: what role do they play?

They aren’t strong enough to be a hammer unit, that’s for sure (with only 1 attack each at S3 AP -1, even WS 5 isn’t really helping that much). So, are they an anvil? Spearmen often are, and being Close Order they can get some decent static combat resolution. But as soon as I start doing any of the math against common units I’d expect to take a charge from, it seems like they’ll get ripped apart pretty quickly. The one saving grace is Stubborn, so at least they will Fall Back rather than Flee. Here’s a quick peak at the math.

If I’ve 15 Eternal Guard (5×3) with full command, and no upgrades, it’ll cost me 210 points. Let’s say they take a charge from 6 Knights of the Realm (165 points, with FC). Everybody goes simultaneously, and I’ll ignore challenges for ease of math (it wouldn’t make much difference anyway). The Eternal Guard will inflict ~1.5 wounds on average (assuming the Knights have the Blessing of the Lady). The Knights will inflict ~3.5 (including 1 from the horses), giving them +2 combat resolution making the combat a draw (each have +1 for standard, +1 for close order/lance formation, and the Guard have +2 rank bonus)–except they don’t have that bonus any more because the Knights have First Charge, disrupting the unit. Oops!

And the math gets worse if you’re taking on something at WS5/I4 that’s charging you. Let’s look at a Lance of 6 Questing Knights, only 177 points with FC. The Knights attack first doing ~2.5 wounds, then horses and Eternal Guard go simultaneously, with horses doing another 1 wound and the Eternal Guard doing … wait for it … ~0.95 wounds back! There are two factors at work here – having fewer attacks back, and only hitting on 4s.

(If you’re curious, and I was, a Lance of 6 Grail Knights at 249pts with FC do ~6.1 wounds against the unit, +1 for the horses, and the EG would do a measley ~0.27 wounds back! Chaos Chosen Knights with Mark of Khorne, same price, 7.9 wounds, +2 for the horses, and ~0.16 wounds back).

So, you have to assume that any charge you take you’re going to lose the combat, and then Fall Back. Note that this only counts for the first combat, due to how Stubborn works. If you want to survive a charge from the big boys (like those Chosen Knights), you need to have more than 10 models, so that block of 15 is really the minimum you need.

However, now that you know what will happen, you can start to use this to your tactical advantage. A block of T3 Elves with a 6+ Armour Save are a very juicy target for your opponent, so if I were to use them, it would be in a way to try to encourage a charge from a unit that I want to then counter charge in the flank with (presumably) Wild Riders.

Eternal Guard take a charge in the front, lose and fall back.
Wild Riders can then hit in the flank! A simple and common tactic.

(Again, I got math curious – Wild Riders will kill ~3.5-4.9, depending on whether the Knights have a 2+ or a 3+ armour save).

So, it’s not the traditional sort of Anvil, where you can just stay put because you’re so dang tough, but it is a very Wood Elven Anvil, where you can run away and come back again because you’re so disciplined. However, it’s an expensive unit for so few wounds, and it’ll also die very easily to shooting due to how easy it is to wound and how poor the armour save. I think the army roster has better options for an Anvil unit.

Therefore, and it pains me a little to say it, I think Eternal Guard are the worst choice Wood Elves have in Core, and the only reason to run them is if you already have the models and want to see them on the battlefield. Rank 5th of 5 for Core Choice.

Originally written for rankandflank.com.

Breakpoint Conclusions

Posted on by

I went to Ireland’s first Old World tournament, Breakpoint, at the weekend, bringing 1,000 points of Wood Elves. We were playing at Underworld Gaming, Dublin, who graciously sponsored prizes for the event.

I ended up playing all three games against Bretonnian players, which won’t make for an exciting tournament report. However, there are a bunch of takeaways I had from the event which I thought were worth sharing. Some are about Wood Elves, and some about the game in general.

First off: A Treeman Ancient is the toughest thing in Wood Elves to kill. Survived all 3 games, despite being repeatedly charged by Bretonnian knights of every shape and size. However, being only a Level 2 wizard kinda sucks – in larger games, I would definitely take L4. I couldn’t dispel some remains-in-play spells that ruined my day in Game 2. Assailment spells in close combat are great – I stopped taking Tree Singing and went for Hammerhand Game 3. Tree Singing used to be a great tactic in previous editions, because you summoned trees in front of your opponent’s cavalry, which made it much harder for them to see and/or charge. Now, it’s kinda useless because it’s just a Remains in Play spell on a 7+ so your opponent will dispel the Forest on their turn before they have to make any moves or declare any charges.

Terror and Fear didn’t come into the games much, mostly because I didn’t have better Unit Strength than the units I was fighting. I think a Fear test was failed once over three games. I think for Dryads (who cause Fear) to work effectively they would need to be in larger units than 5 … see possible later tactic.

Not having a BSB was rough. Archers definitely want to have a BSB in order to be able to flee when charged. I rolled 11s multiple times when trying to rally fleeing archer units, which worked against me in the game I lost.

I think there might be a tactic involving Fire & Flee / Trueflight on one wide rank of GG. Have them flee through a unit of Dryads and then rally behind and be able to draw line of sight through the Skirmishers. The charge might fail and then the Dryads could potentially move back to make it happen again. Might be a bit cheesy, and I’m not sure how exactly I’d need to line up my troops. Some testing needed!

Battlelines drawn! Taking on Keith’s Bretonnian Errantry Crusade in Game 1!

Wild Riders are where it’s at. Frankly, in a Wood Elf army, I’d say take as many as you can. They were hands down the best performers on the battlefield, although they still want to be supported with multi-charges where possible – they can blend but you want to keep them frenzied, so they have to win every combat. Luckily, I never lost a combat with them, but sadly they did get wiped out once by a unit of Grail Knights and my lack of ability to dispel (they had 5+ regen in addition to 5+ ward and 5+ armour (after AP) (see his discussion of the game here).

Vanguard move is just a normal move now, which means only 5″ for our infantry. I think I’m more likely to take more Scouts in the future, as part of the Core allowance.

Trueflight arrows are great. Walk around, shoot on 3+s, plink off a couple of models, cause a panic test. Little units of archers did what they do best. My opponents were more afraid of Arcane Bodkins, they told me afterwards, because … (and this is my major conclusion from the event)

AP -3 is a big deal. It’s as important to this edition as S6 was to 8th ed. It makes a huge difference to the combat math, turning those 3+ saves into 6+. Versus AP -2 (which is pretty common – GW, Lances, etc.), which turns a 3+ save into a 5+. That extra -1 will half the number of saves your opponent makes.

Originally written for rankandflank.com.

Wood Elves – Dryads

Posted on by

Continuing on my thoughts on Asrai core units, next up are the Dryads.

Profile

Dryads have the same profile as a Glade Guard, but with two important improvements: an extra points of Toughness for T4, and an extra Attack. In fact, they are one of the very few core units in the game that come with 2 Attacks base. Minimum of 5 in the unit, and base sizes are increased from last edition to 30mm, although they still count as Regular Infantry, not Heavy. For 13 points, they come with Light Armour and a 6+ Regeneration save that gets canceled out by Flaming Attacks, on account of them being Flammable. They aren’t as durable as they were in prior editions, that’s for sure. The extra attack is nice, but it’s still only S3 no AP, and we don’t have Wyssan’s Wildform or similar Strength buffing spells to rely on. So, don’t expect Dryads to do a lot of heavy lifting in combat.

Special Rules

Aside from the ones already mentioned, Dryads still cause Fear, have Magical Attacks and are Immune to Psychology. This makes them excellent against Undead and Daemons, canceling out many of the inbuilt advantages of those troops. As you would expect, they also have Move Through Cover, something most of the Asrai units have. They’re also (obviously) Tree Spirits, which in this edition means that only Branchwraith characters can join the unit, and that they can’t use an Elf’s leadership (i.e. if your general is an Elf), so it’s mostly just a bunch of limitations with no benefits. The one benefit is that they can use a Tree Spirit character’s leadership if within command range, so if you have a Treeman Ancient or Branchwraith, it’ll buff their Ld a bit. Meh.

They can choose to be in either Skirmish or Open Order formation, but given the lack of Command options, it seems kinda pointless to run them as Open Order unless you need to be disrupting someone, so I expect Skirmish to be the default. Lastly, they also have the Stubborn special rule (something they got before by being Skirmishers in a Forest, but that rule is now gone). Stubborn now just grants you a free ‘Fall Back in Good Order’ on your first break test, which is not bad but no longer the meta dominating rule it used to be.

Command

Sadly, you are limited to one option, which is a Champion (Nymph) for an extra 5 points. I’d only take this if I had a spare 5 points to make up at the end of building my army list. The champion can take Forest Spites up to 25 points, but frankly I think this unit will struggle to conserve points (in other words, I expect Dryad units will get wiped out before battle’s end) so I wouldn’t bother. Given that you only get each Spite once per army, any that are worth taking would be better spent on another model.

Army Role

So, in 2,500 point lists, how will I play them? I have 15 or so Dryads, plus an old Drycha model (shown above) that suits a Branchwraith or Nymph. Most likely I’ll take these in skirmishing units of 5 or 6 and use them in a chaff role. They can probably kill most other chaff, what with having 2 attacks base, but they definitely need to be advanced through cover, and ideally want to charge out of a forest and into something small then disappear into cover again (this will be an ongoing theme for many of our units!). I’m probably not running more than two units, and even then I’d probably only run them if I really needed to make up core points. I’d probably rank them 4th out of the 5 core choices for Wood Elves, but take that with a grain of salt because I still haven’t got any games in yet!

Originally written for rankandflank.com.

Wood Elves – Glade Guard

Posted on by
5 Glade Guard

Continuing on from my last thread, here are my first thoughts on the Wood Elves mandatory core choice. I’ll focus on 2,500 point lists, which I think will probably end up being the tournament norm again.

Love ’em or hate ’em, you gotta have ’em! Glade Guard are 1+ in the army, which I’m sure for some folks is a ‘tax’ they have to pay rather than something they are excited for. At 11 points a model, they are the cheapest model in the army, with T3 and no armour save. This is the same as the last few editions worth of rules, so shouldn’t come as any surprise. Glade Guard need to be kept away from the enemy at all costs! Thankfully, we have the tools to be able to do this.

Asrai Longbow

With a massive range of 32″, this gives us a short range of 16″ to shoot with. Maximum declarable charge range for a unit is now it’s Move + 6, which means we can shoot any infantry at short range without fear of being charged (cavalry with swiftstride have a Move + 9 declarable charge range, which means it’s not quite as safe). There’s a range of different arrows to choose from (see my other post), my preference is to go with Trueflight arrows for an extra point to grant Ignores Cover and Quick Shot, so you’re always hitting on 3s unless you’re at long range, and you ALWAYS get to stand and shoot. It also grants Volley Fire, which is not something we will use much because Wood Elves always be movin’, but YMMV.

Special Rules

Elven Reflexes, Open Order and Move Through Cover, all very thematic rules for our beloved Asrai. I covered Elven Reflexes in another post, but of particular note is Open Order. This formation gives Glade Guard a free 90° pivot after moving, as long as it didn’t march/charge/flee. I expect we will be able to use this to move past would-be chargers, then pivot and shoot them in the flanks. We also get to move unhindered through difficult terrain (i.e. forests).

In armies over 1,000 points, 1 unit per 1,000 can take Fire & Flee and/or Vanguard (and a magic standard up to 50 points, which is not worth it imho – maybe the Razor Standard if the unit is large). Vanguard is a 5″ move up the battlefield, which is most likely going to turn your Vanguarded unit into a target. However, occasionally you’ll be able to grab a building or a hill and make use of it. Not worth the points imho, because we have Scouts who do this job better. The Fire & Flee is a decent choice, as it gives you that option to be within charge range of a cavalry unit and still be at short range. If they charge, shoot ’em and run!

Command

Command models are 6 points each, and most likely a waste of points. The musician is the exception (just like last edition!), especially if you have Fire & Flee, as the musician gives you a +1 to your Ld roll when rallying. Expect your Glade Guard to do a lot of running away – there’s no point being involved in a close combat with these guys, because pretty much everything will win! We aren’t Bretonnians – running away is part of our core tactics 🙂 The musician also grants +1 for marching when nearby the enemy, because sometimes running away means running forward! The champion can take a magic item up to 25 points, but there really isn’t anything worth giving them. Save your points!

Army role

So, in 2,500 point lists, how will I play them? I have ~40 GG models. Given that you can take them in units as small as 5, it’s something I will definitely test out – running 6 or 7 units of 5 Glade Guard seems like a great way to conserve points and maximize shooting capacity – 60 points each with Trueflight, or 66 with the Musician – the ultimate in MSU, assuming I can fit them on the battlefield. The other way I’m thinking to run them is to take two blocks of about 15, give them both Fire & Flee, and run them as wide as will fit comfortably on the battlefield. Move forward, shoot, then move back, shoot, then fire & flee! Each of those units would be 201 points, but I worry they’d get wiped out by flying monsters as they’d be an easy win once in combat. Keeping them small and maneuverable, and not worrying about losing 1 or 2 units is how I’m most likely gonna go. They’ll whittle away at enemy units all game, and try to stay out of combat as much as possible.

Originally written for rankandflank.com.