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Hello, I am wondering if people think that wood elves are a playable race?

I have skimmed the codex and it seems like they have good bows. If they work you can shoot for one or two turns and then take a stand and shoot when they attack you. Also, the dryads seems like a good unit. S4, T4, I6, M5 and A2 seems like a good deal. Also they are skirmishers so they can be very mobile.

The treants also look good with scaly skin 4+ and then a ward save on top of that.

Is wood elves playable if you use the right units? The reason I am asking is because I think they look cool, but I am a bit baffeled by the amount of special rules on the heroes.

Wood Elves are definitely playable but the first thing I want to mention that they are considered to be sub-par. And I agree with that conclusion, the army book is one of the worst for competitive play.

That being said, some exceptional players are doing very well with wood elves. If you rate models and the soft fluffy stuff over power level, you should definitely go with the army you find most attractive. if, on the other hand you are a new player and you put more value on raw strength of the list, another army might be more rewarding for you.

Wood Elves have great magic items, their problem lies with the devaluation of bs shooting in this edition and the fact that since most people run shadow/death, the low initiative hard hitters will extremely vulnerable to all kinds of threats. Also, their magical abilities are somewhat lacking behind since their lores are quite limited.

If you have more specific questions, I would like to help out.

They do have good shooting, however they took a huge hit in this and several other departments.

1) BS based shooting. Cover is much easier to get now and even with BS4 you will find you arn't getting many hits.

2) Str3. They got slightly better now that 6s always wound, but its still only Str3.

3) Forests. With terrain no longer slowing other units down and being able to see all the way through, WE can't play the avoidance game any more. They used to be able to stand in the trees, completely immune to any charges and they could just plink away.

4) Victory Points. Now that you must completely destroy a unit to get points, WE really are at a disadvantage. previously they would just whittle every unit down and win with the partial Victory Points.

5) Enemy Shooting. the change to terrain now means that WEs are taking ALOT of return fire. Previously the WE could shoot through forests and their opponent couldn't. Now the enemy can shoot back, at a -1 but its still not good. If WEs get hit, they basically fall over with T3 and no saves, or poor ones, on most stuff.

6) Skirmishers. Skirmishers now have a front, side, and rear facings. WE skirmishers now need to wheel, reform, and rank up like everyone else. They can't just move in any direction they want anymore. This limits the mobility of units previously uncatchable.



The best part of the book are the Forest Spirits as they can actually win combats reliably due to higher toughness and str.

Forest Spirit lists are moderatly competitive, but the prelevence of Flaming Attacks now means there will almost always be at least one unit that will just demolish you in every list.

^^ Wait a sec, skirmishers can't just move around freely and face any which direction they want anymore? and they need to reform and wheel now? I missed that memo

Skirmishers move like a normal unit, but they do have unlimited free reforms. Skirmishers won't be doing a lot of wheeling as reforming is generally (or is it always?) faster. No need to backpedal or go sideways, either: just reform, move and reform again.