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Shadowdancer and Waystalker are just the old Wardancer and Waywatcher Kindred nobles from the previous book. >>

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Shadowdancer and Waystalker are just the old Wardancer and Waywatcher Kindred nobles from the previous book. >>

Yes. But, why give them both 25 points of magical gear.

And why make the Shadowdancer pay 60 points to become a level 1? On top of his 100 point price tag.

Waystalkers can put out two sniper shots at 30", the psychological impact of that is enough to mess with your opponents plans.

In the games I played yesterday, the combination of Skayrn, The Arrow of Kurnous and a waystalker meant I did not have to deal with my opponents cauldron unit or executioners head on.

 Krellnus wrote:
Waystalkers can put out two sniper shots at 30", the psychological impact of that is enough to mess with your opponents plans.

In the games I played yesterday, the combination of Skayrn, The Arrow of Kurnous and a waystalker meant I did not have to deal with my opponents cauldron unit or executioners head on.

You have more reliable tools in your arsenal to avoid dealing with combat blocks. Especially frenzied elven combat blocks. Glade Guard deal with those really well.

And those two sniper shots are still only S3. And he's 90 points. For 80 you can get a level 1 death. And the level 1 death is more reliable at sniping characters and models.

No it isn't, a level 1 death has to cast the spell and will probably only be Ld 8. That is also assuming that you have enough dice (which you won't often, because generating tokens will likely be a higher priority).

Additionally, the Death wizard has a much shorter range than the longbow and is less capable of supporting your army in other ways (such as Araloth being a Ld 10 general and lending much needed killing power to Eternal Guard or wildwood rangers).

That's not to say that death wizards are bad, its just I would much rather take 2 level twos and try for soulblight and p.sun.

I was thinking of running a Spellweaver, level 4 with the acorn. The taking a lord mounted on a stag and giving him the Moonstone. He would be attached to a 9-large wild rider squad. This would be supplemented by two large squads of glade guard and a warhawk rider squad.Not sure where the rest of the points will go.

But the idea is to get a forest near the enemy flank. Run the warhawk's up to be more of a distraction, at their point cost, who really cares if they get wiped out. Then use the moonstone item on the lord to pop up in the enemy zone on the flank. Do you think this is a viable starting point for an army? How would a Treeman fit in with this tactic?

 Krellnus wrote:
No it isn't, a level 1 death has to cast the spell and will probably only be Ld 8. That is also assuming that you have enough dice (which you won't often, because generating tokens will likely be a higher priority).

Additionally, the Death wizard has a much shorter range than the longbow and is less capable of supporting your army in other ways (such as Araloth being a Ld 10 general and lending much needed killing power to Eternal Guard or wildwood rangers).

That's not to say that death wizards are bad, its just I would much rather take 2 level twos and try for soulblight and p.sun.

Aaaactually. The level 1 death has access to two possible spells. And will probably be LD 10. That means that you have a much larger chance of outright killing your opponent's general. As for the tokens, I can see the doublebolt list running them, but that's about it.

The Shadowdancer I see being useful as a unit leader in a block of non Wardancers (ha!) to add some combat resolution.

I could possibly see her using Glistening Scales (if only she had WS9 so WS4 enemies would then hit on a 6+ as the magic item, then using the 3++ normally then switch to remove ranks for the kill, or Killingblow for assassination where needed.

If your level 1 wizard is in the same unit as your general that is one of two things for your opponent, free points, or a lot of free points, neither of which is advisable.

As for the tokens, I predict that almost every army will run high magic, the ability to negate incoming damage like that allows us to build pure glass cannon combat lords, something only our Asur cousins can do at the moment.

 Krellnus wrote:
If your level 1 wizard is in the same unit as your general that is one of two things for your opponent, free points, or a lot of free points, neither of which is advisable.

As for the tokens, I predict that almost every army will run high magic, the ability to negate incoming damage like that allows us to build pure glass cannon combat lords, something only our Asur cousins can do at the moment.

I never said the same unit. The general does actually have IP.

I actually see high magic falling at the wayside. It's a mediocre-bad lore with an okay attribute. Whereas with dark, 2 hexes and a boosted doombolt does 42 hits to a unit. And neither of those are as good for the army as shadow or death. Or light, to a certain extent.

 thedarkavenger wrote:

 Krellnus wrote:
If your level 1 wizard is in the same unit as your general that is one of two things for your opponent, free points, or a lot of free points, neither of which is advisable.

As for the tokens, I predict that almost every army will run high magic, the ability to negate incoming damage like that allows us to build pure glass cannon combat lords, something only our Asur cousins can do at the moment.

I never said the same unit. The general does actually have IP.

Oh right, I forgot they put that FAQ in that completely negates their previous ruling which uses IP as an example.

 thedarkavenger wrote:
I actually see high magic falling at the wayside. It's a mediocre-bad lore with an okay attribute. Whereas with dark, 2 hexes and a boosted doombolt does 42 hits to a unit. And neither of those are as good for the army as shadow or death. Or light, to a certain extent.

I'm not so sure, it like heavens, helps WE do what they do best and that is manipulate the movment phase (Walk between worlds and Fiery convocation immeadiatley come to mind) our biggest strength I think, will be that we can council any lore better than other races, especially if we sit in a forest.

What do you think about channel spamming?
Branchwraiths are only 75 points and are level 1 with lore of life. In a 2400 point game, you can run 8 as heroes, giving you the full lore of life and 2 signature spells.
Then take 3 units of Sisters of Thorn units and 3 Lord level casts (level 3's) for lords.
That gives you 13 channels.
Take beast magic on one (or both) of the lords, and cram those Dryad heroes into the front rank of 1 or 2 Dryad Blocks.

 HawaiiMatt wrote:
What do you think about channel spamming?
Branchwraiths are only 75 points and are level 1 with lore of life. In a 2400 point game, you can run 8 as heroes, giving you the full lore of life and 2 signature spells.
Then take 3 units of Sisters of Thorn units and 3 Lord level casts (level 3's) for lords.
That gives you 13 channels.
Take beast magic on one (or both) of the lords, and cram those Dryad heroes into the front rank of 1 or 2 Dryad Blocks.

13 channels gives you just over 2 dice per phase, but it's at the cost of a ton of spells that you can't cast because those 9 dice on average are now being split between 13 casters, and only three of those casters are going to have any bonus to casting worth writing home about. Could be fun for shenanigans for sure, but I'm not convinced it's effective.

Channel spamming wouldn't be efficient, not because Wood Elves can't do it, but because other races can do it so much better due to magic items and such. If you need the extra magic dice to push though important spells, take a level 3 with Lore of Dark Magic. Take PoD and Doombolt and put him in a unit of 5 Sisters of the Thorn. Run into a forest and use PoD, if they dispell, they use up maybe 2 dice for your 1, if they don't you get enough dice to throw at Doombolt which they might also try to dispel. Dark Magic is a great lore at trying to draw out dispel dice.

To me i am seeing the new hottness being the Waywatchers where most lists will pack at least 2x5 of them. Bs 5 armour ignoring shots for cheap in a slot with little competition? Yes please! The new Waystalker looks good to, take 2 of them naked with the Waywatchers and they will be sniping out support characters left and right. How many level 1 scroll caddies do you see? How many BSB's that rely on a 1+ re-rollable save? Let them fear the forest!

I think one of the main auto includes in the new book is one unit with Starfire Shafts. I find the majority of the big scary monsters are Forces of Destruction with regen rolls, I'm looking at Hell Pits and Hydras here, a unit with those arrows is wounding on 5s against that thing, and it's main save of a regen doesn't help it.I will be taking a unit of 15 GG in a forest every game to deal with nasty things like that, it should be actually rather effective, can probably kill a hell pit in 2-3 turns without engaging it, always good.

danny1995 wrote:
I think one of the main auto includes in the new book is one unit with Starfire Shafts. I find the majority of the big scary monsters are Forces of Destruction with regen rolls, I'm looking at Hell Pits and Hydras here, a unit with those arrows is wounding on 5s against that thing, and it's main save of a regen doesn't help it.I will be taking a unit of 15 GG in a forest every game to deal with nasty things like that, it should be actually rather effective, can probably kill a hell pit in 2-3 turns without engaging it, always good.

Starfire and Moonfire arrows are about the same as having poison arrows and a flaming banner. In a tournament, I'd go for the poison instead, as it will also thump the sphinxes, ogre chariots and frost phoenixes.

-Matt

I think that's definitely going to be a play test thing for me, I definitely see no reason for moonfire though.

glade riders have ambush which sadly negates vanguard, it is a weird one but ambush has to start in reserve.

Retracted

 HawaiiMatt wrote:

Starfire and Moonfire arrows are about the same as having poison arrows and a flaming banner. In a tournament, I'd go for the poison instead, as it will also thump the sphinxes, ogre chariots and frost phoenixes.

-Matt

Flaming banner doesn't work with magic arrows.

I don't see where you're getting that impression from.

"All shooting attacks made with enchanted arrows count as having been made with magic weapons." WE pg 37

"Unless otherwise stated, a model with this special rule has both Flaming shooting and close combat attacks (though any spells cast by the model are unaffected, as are any attacks made with magic weapons they might be wielding)." BRB pg 69

Thank you for the clarification, makes me want to take the arrows even more. I just hate hell pits. Plus this opens up the use of BoEF on a combat block depending on your meta (I won't be using it, too many Dragon Princes around here). The tactic I'm interested in trying is eternal guard with a shadow dancer to negate rank bonuses. I'll need to double check some rules on that one though, very much not used to dealing with steadfast and the like.

Do Wood Elf Characters have access to a mount with the fast cav rules?

Sure do.

danny1995 wrote:
Thank you for the clarification, makes me want to take the arrows even more. I just hate hell pits. Plus this opens up the use of BoEF on a combat block depending on your meta (I won't be using it, too many Dragon Princes around here). The tactic I'm interested in trying is eternal guard with a shadow dancer to negate rank bonuses. I'll need to double check some rules on that one though, very much not used to dealing with steadfast and the like.

Negating Rank bonus doesn't Negate ranks. You opponent is going to lose the +1 to +3 to combat res, and that's it. I don't see the T3 6++ character lasting that long when he chooses to negate ranks instead of taking the 3++ save. A unit of 5 wardances is actually cheaper than the hero. I think I'd take the little unit and use it in a combo charge.

I knew the arrows where magical, but I thought being an enchanted item meant they weren't "magic weapons". Oh well.

So it looks like there is a lot of discussion of the glade guard, the waywatchers and the wild riders.

But where does the Treeman come in. Should he be run as Durthu, an ancient, or just the Treeman? I'm looking for the best way to field this guy in my new army,.

Personally I think standard tree man is your best bet, ancients are tough but you're basically paying for a well defended level 2 there, and a tree man in my opinion should be your beat stick next to your wild riders. Ancients can't do that. But durthu might be worth trying in that roll.

 HawaiiMatt wrote:

danny1995 wrote:
Thank you for the clarification, makes me want to take the arrows even more. I just hate hell pits. Plus this opens up the use of BoEF on a combat block depending on your meta (I won't be using it, too many Dragon Princes around here). The tactic I'm interested in trying is eternal guard with a shadow dancer to negate rank bonuses. I'll need to double check some rules on that one though, very much not used to dealing with steadfast and the like.

Negating Rank bonus doesn't Negate ranks. You opponent is going to lose the +1 to +3 to combat res, and that's it. I don't see the T3 6++ character lasting that long when he chooses to negate ranks instead of taking the 3++ save. A unit of 5 wardances is actually cheaper than the hero. I think I'd take the little unit and use it in a combo charge.

I knew the arrows where magical, but I thought being an enchanted item meant they weren't "magic weapons". Oh well.

Yeah, it was the last sentence of the paragraph describing how they work, I missed it the first go around too.

Just noticed that the Wood Elves finally got that update I have been wanting before I started Fantasy. So, here is my question; Can an all Forest Spirit army still be viable?