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Made in us
Sneaky Striking Scorpion




Between the Sun and the Sky

Hello all. I'm a frequent 40k player, but have looked towards Fantasy for something a little different. I would like to start Wood Elves, and have acquired myself an army book for them. I like the archery, the style of play, the archery, the models, the archery... well, you get the idea. I have yet to play a game, and would like to get a good list before I do so, but I think my list may have missed the "good" mark and skedaddled right past into "D+, Please see me after class" territory. I know there are some experienced players on these boards, so I decided to post my draft here. Here goes!

LORDS

Wood Elf Highborn
Wardancer
Blades of Loec
Merciw's Locus
An Annoyance of Nestlings

275

HEROES

Wood Elf Noble
Waywatcher
Starfire Arrows

135

Spellsinger
Lvl 2 Wizard

125


CORE

16 Glade Guard
Full Command
Banner of Springtide

241

8 Glade Riders
Full Command

228

20 Eternal Guard
Full Command

250

SPECIAL

10 Wardancers
Full Command

201

3 Tree Kin

195

RARE

10 Waywatchers
Sentinel

248

Treeman

285

With all that, I'm at 2183, and need to shave some things off. My guess is I went on a spree and got too many goodies for myself, and need to drop some of them in favor of some more Eternal Guard or Glade Guard.

Comments and concerns greatly appreciated.

Catch me if you can.
 
   
Made in us
Terrifying Wraith




Houston

Welcome to the dark side BSIV! Your list is a bit rough around the edges, but with a few tweaks it can be much more effective. There are some large differences in 40k and fantasy that i think you might be neglecting, but we'll get to those along the way. WoodElves have the potential to be a devastating army, but in order to achieve that you need to use movement to the fullest, mainly by denying your opponent a chance to assault your weak unarmored Asrai. This means the name of your game is points denial, you will rarely destroy the whole opponents army, but you should strive to kill more of his than you let him kill of yours.

First, you need to buy a box of trees. Being able to place and move around a piece of terrain is the single strongest advantage the WE have (so strong that they dont let you use it in tourneys anymore.

Your mage is going to be outmuscled against almost all opponents, this will mean that you wont get any spells off and you will bear the brunt of their offence. It's fairly common to see 6-8 casting dice along with a few bound spells in most armies. In 40k psychic powers are barely a blip on the radar, however in fantasy magic adds another aspect to the battle. You should also bear in mind that intrinsically magic armies like the undead will be able to easily bring 10+ powerdice to a 2k battle, and no amount of arrows will be able to save you from that kind of dominance.
My suggestions would be (in order of preference):
1. Swap the fighty Lord for a lord level mage with the recast treesinging item (whos name skips my mind but is either the staff or the orb). This is my preferred lord in WE because you can jsut spam treesinging with your lord who will have 6 dice along with the treemans bound spell. By slowing down your opponents most effective units you isolate the weaker aspects of his army, which is crucial for a brittle army.
2. get another mage
3. drop the lvl 2 and bring a few dispel scrolls

As for the waywatcher hero i would make him a normal noble and place him in either the eternal guard (ill get back to that later) or the glade archers. The waywatchers will do jsut fine on their own, and dont really need hero support. If you decide you like him as a waywatcher at the very least i would drop the magic arrows, which cant be used with lethal shot anyway.

Onto the units: a term we have in fantasy is msu, multiple small units. this is probably the best overall strategy for elves in general and definitely WE. The premise is to constantly taunt opposing units into charging your small units, which then choose to flee as a charge reaction. A canny general will have his hammer units (in your case treekin, wardancers, treeman), in a position where the movement from a failed charge brings the opponent into your charge range.

Glade riders are arguably the best unit for this because they are core, have a good leadership to rally, a massive movespeed, and are fast cav. Because their primary purpose is jsut to move and flee, you dont really need more than the minimum 5. It is also good to realize that the banner and character upgrade are going to be mostly useless, because you never want the unit in combat for the +1, and an extra BS is never really that useful. Keep the musician though, as the +1 to rally fits perfectly with their role.

An archery battery of gladeguard is alright, they will be able to force a few panic tests a game, but dont expect them to be a game winner by any stretch. If your heart is set on them i would drop the banner, bearer, and char, and make two units of 10 with muso's. The banner is 'neat' but that is about it, and you are going to give up 241+100 vps as soon as anything hits them in combat as they cant really be expected to fend off anything. You will be much better off fleeing from a charge and then countercharging with a hammer than getting an extra stand and shoot, in almost all cases.

I dont really think the eternal guard is a good unit, because it goes against most of the WE strengths. They might be the best block of infantry you can muster, but a good WE army shouldnt get caught into a prolonged grind anyway. I think you would be better off with another unit of glade riders as i mentioned above, and another small hammer unit (dryads, wardancers, warhawks, wildriders). If you are sold on them i would drop them to a minimum size at least.

Wardancers (and msu's in general) probably peak at 7 models, this gets you a full frontage for attacks, without any wasted guys in the subsequent ranks. The most consistent way to break a unit with WE is to get the flank charge to negate rank bonus; keep in mind that skirmishers cannot do this. I think you will find it very difficult to win combats with the wardancers based solely on their combat prowess, so always try to get two units to charge one of your opponent's, preferably with some gladeriders/treekin/wildriders in the flank if it is a block of infantry.

Treekin are a great hammer exactly like you have them.

I would drop the sentinal for the waywatchers in the same manner as the other char upgrades.

The treeman is awesome, but he is quite slow for a monster and without some more magical support his bound spell will probably never go off either.

With a few revisions i think this army could go from a D+ to A- in no time

Fantasy: 4000 - WoC, 1500 - VC, 1500 - Beastmen
40k: 2000 - White Scars
Hordes: 5/100 - Circle of Orboros
 
   
Made in us
Sneaky Striking Scorpion




Between the Sun and the Sky

Thank you very much for the insight, Kiwidru. Here's my revised list, based on your tips (couldn't fit in any Treekin though =/) :

LORDS

Spellweaver
Lvl 4 Wizard
Dispell Scroll
Calaingor's Stave
The Deepwood Sphere

325

HEROES

Spellsinger
Lvl 2 Wizard
Dispel Scroll
Divination Orb

175

Wood Elf Noble
Wardancer
Blades of Loec

140

CORE

10 Glade Guard

120

10 Glade Guard

120

5 Glade Riders
Musician

129

5 Glade Riders
Musician

129

9 Dryads

108

SPECIAL

6 Wardancers
Musician
Bladesinger

129

6 Wild Riders
Full Command

192

6 Wild Riders
Full Command

192

RARE

10 Waywatchers

240

TOTAL
1999

Catch me if you can.
 
   
Made in us
Terrifying Wraith




Houston

Well, i had a sweet as response going untill my coworker came by and hit alt+f4...so you will get the toned down rewrite.

The List looks to be much more competetive, i like the overall build much more and any changes i would make are purely cosmetic/preferential:
1. it might be worth swapping a dispel scroll for the "hail of Doom" arrow. Im assuming that you will be leaving the mages in the glade guard units, so if you do take it make sure to break off in the movement phase so that you can have a different target. Remember that the more panic tests you cause the better, and this can almost gar-un-tee a check on its own.
2. swapping a wildrider unit for treekin could be useful as a brute squad, for the times when you cant avoid head on collisions.

The key thing to realise when playing WE is that their playstyle is radically different than all other WHFB armies. Most armies perfer to 'square off' across the board into favorable matchups, and then advance (or stay and shoot) in unison to support each other. Your ace in the hole is dividing and conquering, by forcing the opponent to stagger his battleline you enable your brittle units to swarm and isolate combats in relative safety of counter attacks. This list has all the tools you need to achieve that goal.

1st You will start with a strong unit behind the enemys lines causing one flank to be unable to march due to proximity; waywatchers are more than capable of engaging warmachine crews/gunlines in melee due to their high Ws/I/A. This will all but force the opponent to turn a block of infantry to chase, playing into your strategy. My waywatchers die to a man in almost every game, but if they eliminate the opponents missle/flanking units and remove a unit from his battle line it is more than worth it. If the opponent chooses to ignore them, roll the missle units and move behind units you expect to fail panic/break checks for the instant kill.

2nd You have terrain that you can move. This is a subtle art, and you should always be weighing relative strengths of your opponents units. In most cases i prefer to inconvenience/slow as many units as i can, but if you see Grimgor and da immortuls or khorn chosen with lord barreling in, it will probably be worth it to focus your treesinging on stopping that unit. This is easy to achieve because units cant march through terrain grinding them to a pitiful 4" a turn. Your opponent will either try to go around (in which case you jsut keep moving the trees in front) or try to go through (in which case you spam DD untill he's mulch). If you face an army content to sit back and shoot/magic, move the trees to block LoS to the strongest warmachines/gunlines while you advance.

3rd You have glade riders feigning flight, taunting the few unimpeded units into charges they cant make. Your average infantry charges 8", and your glade riders flee 3d6 (9" average). This means that you shouldnt be afraid of sending the riders right in front of a battle line. Against cavalry staying a healthy 7" away will mean that he cant march, and if he charges you will still get away. You can use them to blitz around the opponent using fast cav reform rules in order to set up a rear or flank attack, but that would be a much better task for the wildriders, as they have much more punch in combat and cause fear on the charge.

4th you have a decent amount of archery to cause panic checks. In general you wont be able to destroy units with missle fire, but you can reliably force a few panic checks a turn (25% is the magic number). It is infinitly better to cause 2-3 panic checks a turn than to focus all fire on trying to eliminate a single target. A few failed panic checks combined with the methods above will fragment the opponents army so much that he wont be able to do anything but watch his units get singled out and eliminated.

Goodluck, and dont get discouraged if you get slaughtered in the first few games, it takes some experience to know which tactic above is the best counter for individual units. Once you get the hang of it you will be able to engage most armies on your own terms, and that is the key to WE success.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2008/07/21 22:43:25


Fantasy: 4000 - WoC, 1500 - VC, 1500 - Beastmen
40k: 2000 - White Scars
Hordes: 5/100 - Circle of Orboros
 
   
Made in us
Terrifying Wraith




Houston

also, in my haste i forgot that you can only have 1 arcane item (not including common magic items) per character, so i would drop the orb on the lord rather than the dispell scroll.

Fantasy: 4000 - WoC, 1500 - VC, 1500 - Beastmen
40k: 2000 - White Scars
Hordes: 5/100 - Circle of Orboros
 
   
 
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