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So like the topic says, my girlfriend actually saw a game and has shown some interest in collecting and playing Wood Elves. I've never played them (nobody at my FLGS plays them), so I have no idea what to start with. My idea was to buy her a box of whatever core unit is pretty good and move on to maybe a battalion box from there if she likes them. Advice? No idea really of what's currently a "good" WE list, or even really what's in the Army Book.

With the End Times going on (and the Oak of Ages getting sucked into the vortex of Chaos) I would wait a little while. Like until after the summer...find out what's happening before you buy into WFB.

Hi Egregious,

WE were updated relatively recently after a long time of being neglected. They also received some new lovely looking models, so this will be a good choice of army for your GF having new rules, new models and a relatively low model count.

I would recommend building up slowly from 500 point jumps to the average size of 2000-2500 point armies. Naturally the size of your army will depend on its composition, as certain units are more or less effective in groups.

I also recommend you visit www.asrai.org for the WE-specific community, as well as scanning our fine forums for army lists.

WE are a predominately skirmishing army, and rely around speed, range and tactical maneuverability as they have little to no lasting melee combat durability (at best you can last a turn or two). Generally, around the 2500, the most commonly seen units are Sisters of Thorns (for a mage bunker), Wild Riders, Giant Eagle and waywatchers. Core is typically a mixture of glade guard and/or glade riders.

Unpopular (but not necessarily bad) units are most tree spirits (no dryad units, and only the occasional lone treant or treekin units of 6+ appearing), and melee units such as Wildwood Rangers or Eternal Guard.

I hope this helps you down your chosen path. WE have a steep learning curve which requires a strong understanding of the rules, the threat ranges of various units and a mastery of forcing your opponent to fight you when and where *you* choose. However, if you can keep your gf with it, she will grow to become a master of manipulating the battlefield to her advantage. Best of luck!

If she's interested in the game, wait a few months, see what happens and if new models/armies come out.
If she's interested in painting, get her a box of whatever models she likes.

Her primary interest at this point is in painting, but she has shown some interest in the gaming aspect too. I'm happy to do anything I can do to encourage new players in my area (even if she had no connection to me). I just don't want to gather a small group of units "because they look cool," just to have her try a practice game and get her face mashed in. That's why I was asking about effective units.

It's tough enough for new players to learn the game without gimping their army selection (I'm still pretty new myself, at least to the game part of the hobby).

If you can find it, the old Wood Elf Battalion(24 Glade Guard, 12 Dryads, 8 Glade Riders) is your best bet for a starting force.

Find out which she prefers painting, infantry, cavalry or undergrowth (dryads etc) and go with that!

For the painting aspect the most i can help is an online friend i have uses ideas from the internet. For instance if you're looking up skaven you look at rats. If you paint lizardmen look up lizards and frogs of different kinds depending on where you want it to take place. If you want to paint a forest (depending on the kind and time of year) look at different things in both the outdoors and on the internet. Also wood elves being wood elves are probably attuned to the forests and dress and look like them so go for a similar look as the forests they're in. It'd also match their ambush style tactics.

Archers are a good starting point - a solid core choice or a decent special as scouts. Quite nice models as well.
A word of warning: they can be tricky to rank up so be aware of this when assembling them!

If you want a unit that can take a charge, and fight on (a useful thing and such a comparatively fragile as Woodies), Eternal Guard are a good option. Good leadership combined with stubborn means that you've got a unit that shouldn't be going anywhere and can fight on through any losses. In a Venom Thicket like the free wood you can place) they're especially deadly as they'll be able to fight in 4 ranks, re-roll all rolls of one to wound and all they're attack'll be poisoned! All this and they're core choices to boot.

Pretty much the opposite of the fairly static blocks of the Eternal guard are the agile and fast moving Glade Riders.
Now, an important thing to remember about Glade Riders is that they have the ambusher rule, which they can't be definitely relied upon to turn up when you need them (especially if, like me, you keep forgetting to roll for them!). That said they can come on from your opponents table edge so are excellent for threatening rear charges, appearing behind missile blocks (especially ones with "move or fire" who can't turn round and shoot at you!) and killing off any war machines that may be lurking around.

On to special choices, and first up are Wild Riders.
Basically, get some. Lovely models and absolutely devastating on the charge. I'f your opponent has faced them before, expect them to throw everything he can at them to get rid of them. If he hasn't, well, teach him the error of his ways! Be warned though that while you can give them a semi-decent save (only 4+, but they get a 6++ on top of that) they're still very fragile and they're frenzy can lead them to make less than optimal charges if you're not careful.

From a painting point of view, Wardancers are a good project. Protected by talismanic tattoos and with wild hair and cool poses, you can have a lot of fun with Wardancers. In terms of combat effectiveness they're... interesting. They probably won't win many combats on their own, but their dances can be put to good use when applied to the flank of a another combat.

Sister of the Thorn are another Special who share a kit with the Wild Riders.
Sisters are another fast cavalry unit (seeing a theme develop?), but these ones are best at avoiding combat altogether, relying on their poisoned javelins and spells to harry their foes. These gals make an excellent bunker for mounted mages (sadly without a currant model so some convertion required) as they're actually pretty resilient with a 4+ ward save.

Warhawks I haven't actually got, so I can't really talk about them. Rules are pretty cool though - they'd be good for warmachine hunting and taking out chaff. I have heard of people using them as a screen for Treemen against cannon balls.

And with that excellent segue, Treemen! Fantastic models (at least to my eye) and tough to hurt in a fight and stubborn to boot, Treemen are your second "anvil" unit, after Eternal Guard. Their Leadership isn't quite as high, so keeping a BSB nearby is a good idea if you're planning on getting stuck in against rank and file troops.

You other rare choice are Waywatchers. Waywatchers are infiltrators and bowmen without peer and can threaten even heavily armoured knights with their shooting. It's an unwise opponent that leaves room behind his deployment where you can sneak some Waywatchers in.

To lead your army you'll need some characters- and as much as I'd like to weight up the pros and cons, I really have to return to this later, as bed beckons. Expect an edit!

As for the rest, there aren't a lot of things that you should definitely avoid, but alas Treekin and Dryads are among them. Treekin aren't a particular loss as the models are old and look (to me at least) clunky, but the dryads are actually nice models.

Also probably best avoided are Wildwood Rangers. The models are cool (I freaking love the massive blades) they're a bit to situational to use in games, comparing particularly badly with Wild Riders, in terms of effectiveness.

TLDR, by cool looking stuff, but not dryads or treekin.

Az

As a WE collector , I can say that from the painting point of view the recent plastic kit are very well made and fun to paint .
Also the models are already made ​​with an eye to the 9th edition and you can easily reuse them as a generic elven units in the future
Personally I suggest you - waiting for the 9th edition - to opt for a box of eternal guard / Wildewood rangers
Best