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After playing eight different fantasy armies (not including armies listed in White Dwarfs such as zombie pirates) I decided to do something I previously believed to be inconceivable, I decided to start up Wood Elves. Despite all my horrible experiences with them two editions ago and swearing an eternal hatred towards their shenanigans back when they were considered powerful, I feel strangely drawn to them as my next army choice. However I am aware that they are widely considered pretty bad now especially in regards to how hard they are to play. I read numerous threads and what not about them and tactically there seems to be only a handful of ways to play them now that can actually win you games. Anyway I'm just looking for some tactical advise so I can get a list going before I start buying things. Theme wise I'm currently uncertain but I know for a fact that I'm going to be doing conversions for this army regardless since quite a few of the Wood Elf models are rather expensive.

One tactic that I have found that can work decently against armies that really rely on deathstars or large blocks is going "power core."

Basically, you add a few wizards (at least one level 4, of course), Treemen/Treemen Ancients to provide some flanking power and put lots into many, many 10-man units of Glade Guard. It puts out a pretty respectable amount of shooting without putting lots of points into any one unit.

Not sure if that is actually effective in other metas, but it is a great way to deny your opponent points while constantly killing him with bug bites.

Two things, does hero spam work with Wood Elves? Since the universally agreed upon tactic with them is MSU would one Spellweaver with a bunch of nobles work Lord/Hero wise?
Secondly what do you do if your faced against another shooting heavy army such as High Elves, besides hug terrain?

I'm the wrong person to give any opinion on hero spam, as I tend towards smaller hero numbers and target saturation through units. I've never run a hero-spam list, so I can't really say.

As far as facing off against other shooting armies, I would think that hugging terrain and MSU style would do well against them. Remember that Wood Elves bows get better S once they reach a certain range. Ideally, you'd want to get to that range in terrain with a lot of bows and simply out-strength them. Can get there more securely with Athel Loren wizards and treesurfing with that one spell whose name I forget.

Other tools that Wood Elves could bring to the table against shooty stuff is Fast Cavalry, which is always a good way to either deal with, or destroy, shooting armies. Treemen/Treemen Ancients can also provide a nice bit of target saturation with a big "hey shoot me or I'll smash your face" unit that draws attention from your bow squads.

 ArchVile wrote:
Two things, does hero spam work with Wood Elves? Since the universally agreed upon tactic with them is MSU would one Spellweaver with a bunch of nobles work Lord/Hero wise?
Secondly what do you do if your faced against another shooting heavy army such as High Elves, besides hug terrain?

I'm not really a fan of hero spam. You can either take them and keep them very cheap, so just 75 points, in which case they really don't add anything- they're not hitty enough to swing the tides of combat, and they kill nothing with shooting. Or, if you tool them up, they're still very frail T3 2W models that could alternatively be 10 more Glade Guard.

When facing other BS shooting armies, WE really have several great advantages. Using High Elves as they're army you mentioned, I find the best thing to do is deploy 30.1" away so that if he gets first turn, he has to move into range to shoot you and thus incur an additional -1 which will make his first round quite ineffective, or if you go first you can walk forwards and shoot him with no penalty and get ahead in the shooting battle. Also, keep running at him- WE shooting gets astronomically better at short range, HE shooting really doesn't.

I also really like running Dryads at HE archers, as they smash them up in combat and can absorb a lot of S3 shooting.

Hehehe.. Wood Elves.

 ArchVile wrote:
Two things, does hero spam work with Wood Elves? Since the universally agreed upon tactic with them is MSU would one Spellweaver with a bunch of nobles work Lord/Hero wise?
Secondly what do you do if your faced against another shooting heavy army such as High Elves, besides hug terrain?

I wouldn't say that Hero spam is all that effective for Wood Elves. In my 2600 point list I have a total of 4 characters, each has a very specific role within the army

-Level 4, I actually like to run my Wood Elves light on shooting and bulk up on small combat units that can inflict horrific damage so have chosen lore of Beasts. It also helps when facing enemy shooting so i can get a Wildform on my archers for T4 or on my Dryads for S5 T5 troops with a quasi 5++ wardsave. The Level 4 (with Moonstone and Wand) helps a lot with dispelling attempts

- BSB for the all important re rolls, also give him Hail of Doom arrow so I can hopefully put a large dent in an enemy horde or finish off a smaller unit for the VP's, you'll need a magic bow to enable him to use it at the moment however which means less armour and therefore protection

- Wardancer Noble, Since I love running Wardancers and have become fairly good at setting up ambushes I can usually get my 3 units with noble into combat relatively unscathed. I give him Blades of Loec to re roll wounds and Other Tricksters shard so if anything I encounter has Ward Saves (Daemons) they're forced to re roll successful saves in BtB contact.

- Branchwraith, completely naked except for a Cluster of Radiants for an additional Dispel Dice and joins a unit of Dryads to provide a bit more killing power against the units that I am attempting to tarpit.

Against High Elves, I typically approach with the same tactics that I do with most armies, spot the weak link and focus your attention on it until its dead, be that shooting, magic or combat. Then repeat if possible. With a well planned and used Wood Elf army you should easily be able to erradicate his chaff and therefor begin to control the movement phase. Shooting against High Elves is often more useful due to T3 elves however if you see a Level 4 with Shadow and Book of Hoeth you know you're going to be in trouble as the amount of hexes they can throw out is irritatingly good.

Another question, I'm aware of the fact that Wood Elves require a balance between shooting and melee to win but where do you draw the line between to much and to little?

The only combat in my lists are 2x8 Dryads, and sometimes a Noble on an Eagle.

About the other trickster's shard, it affects all models in base contact, even friendlies. So any forest spirit or otherwise ward save of the unit stuff in b2b will need to be rerolled also.

I picked up some stuff the other day and part of what I got was glade riders. I was wondering if they are worth keeping as glade riders or more worth it to turn into wild riders?

 curran12 wrote:
I'm the wrong person to give any opinion on hero spam, as I tend towards smaller hero numbers and target saturation through units. I've never run a hero-spam list, so I can't really say.

As far as facing off against other shooting armies, I would think that hugging terrain and MSU style would do well against them. Remember that Wood Elves bows get better S once they reach a certain range. Ideally, you'd want to get to that range in terrain with a lot of bows and simply out-strength them. Can get there more securely with Athel Loren wizards and treesurfing with that one spell whose name I forget.

Other tools that Wood Elves could bring to the table against shooty stuff is Fast Cavalry, which is always a good way to either deal with, or destroy, shooting armies. Treemen/Treemen Ancients can also provide a nice bit of target saturation with a big "hey shoot me or I'll smash your face" unit that draws attention from your bow squads.

I'm glad to hear that you ave experienced some success with Wood Elves when using them in a MSU fashion, I'm starting to go down that road too, I mean, we don't get a save against stuff, so why give the enemy a chance to do more than 10 wounds? Why give him all the points that larger units are worth, as well as the drop in target numbers, when we can force him to deal with multiple units harassing him from every which way.

But then again, I've only had a few games with them so far. And I've lost them all. But the positive is, I've been losing be less.

If someone is using a HE shooting army then you probably already won. Just take out the bolt throwers, then stroll causually across the field with a treeman or 2 and kill them all.

Now if its dwarves/empire/dark elves it gets a bit more tricky. The reason is that they will get much better as you get nearer. The one advantage you have is that your bows have longer range than any of the 3, so you will likely get another round of shooting. Unfortunatly, everyone's armor is better than yours and all of their shooting is at minimum -1 armor save.

having a couple dryad units to clean out any shooty enemy can work fairly well, but they really arn't good for enemy combat units.

i also got a finecast Orion for free that I have a feeling I'll never use.

You could use him as a Treeman Ancient I suppose, or maybe a unit filler depending on what base size he goes on.

You could use him as a Treeman Ancient I suppose, or maybe a unit filler depending on what base size he goes on.

That's actually a really good idea although maybe I should make him taller.

Put him on a rock! But, y'know, make sure you paint it to so that it looks like a rock

I play wood elves a lot in tournaments and I have had some great success. I don't think a lot of wizards or character spam is the way to go. The real strength lies in not using elves other than maybe some warhawks and a wizard since you can give a wizard a dispell scroll and a 3d6 shot arrow just to be cheesey. You will want to go treemen, as many treekin as you can then for core maybe go with a few glade guard for shooting since they arent bad. A treeman ancient isnt a bad idea either. Granted flaming attacks will rape you but its better than any attack raping normal wood elves.

(edit)
I have seen Orion's finecast model used as a treeman ancient pretty frequently. Another good idea is the LotR treant's. They make a great ancient with some flocking.

Forest Spirit lists are certainly one way (probably the most common way) to get Wood Elves competitive, but lots and lots of archery works well.

...have other people had success with Warhawks? I have always thought them to be Awful.

The thing about warhawks is they get a vanguard then can march into position and shoot. Then after that the 2nd turn they can charge into a warmachine or archer block. Since all flying cav is fast cav. They got 2 wounds so i guess thats decent? lol but sadly the hawk usually does all the damage. Then because of the base size don't they get stomp as well? I've heard it both ways in tournaments and never have gotten a clear definate answer.