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 Sasori wrote:

 Wilytank wrote:

 Pyeatt wrote:
... Drop pod in some salamandars and burn those Ent devils down.

The OP has later said that he plays High Elves. Only Lizardmen have Salamanders and even then I'm not sure what a drop pod is. Did you get that from the rough translation of a Slann's belch?

He's making a 40k joke.

No gak.

 Wilytank wrote:

 Sasori wrote:

 Wilytank wrote:

 Pyeatt wrote:
... Drop pod in some salamandars and burn those Ent devils down.

The OP has later said that he plays High Elves. Only Lizardmen have Salamanders and even then I'm not sure what a drop pod is. Did you get that from the rough translation of a Slann's belch?

He's making a 40k joke.

No gak.

Hey, just making sure.

So far what I have found works well against the WE are several tactics combined into a comprehensive strategy. WE are no longer a one trick pony that fall apart when the trick fails, they have real teeth now but are fragile like no other.

-Magic missiles, preferably cheap ~4-10 kills against T3 no armour save ones. You really just need to pound his chaff, deep wood scouts, waywatchers, and/or wild riders with 4-10 casualties and they will either be panic, dead, or too few to matter. HE do this amazingly as with the book of hoeth they can one dice cheap spells and overwhelm the dispel dice pool. MM do a lot against WE as they are an expensive, fragile army that hits hard and fast and usually depend on to hit modifiers to mitigate damage.
-Cheap, reviving, or ward save blocks. This becomes even better if you can be T4 as that is the worst cost effectiveness point for the WE arrows. However WE shooting is great against expensive high T models (hagbane arrows), expensive high armour save units (ignore armour save waywatchers), skirmishers (trueflight), and regenerating (starfire arrows) but a WE list will struggle to put enough wounds to be meaningful on Vamp reviving ghoul blocks, vamp reviving zombie trains, skaven slave blocks, and a big phoenix life magic block. These will not win the game for you but you can drastically cut down the board's size if you can keep the chaff from redirecting your blocks.
-Cavalry with good armour saves supported by killing the waywatchers and/or blocking the metal mage. If you can catch the archers with even a small melee unit you will probably run them down.
-Chaff is more important than ever. WE can deal with chaff very easily and will take you apart piece meal if they win the chaff battle. Therefore you really need to remove the WE chaff and have something of your own to limit the board and corner the WE pts. To this end I have seen some interesting uses of small 5 man silver helm units and the like which are fast enough to deal with MSU type forces and tough enough to survive the normal anti chaff firepower.

-Tomb kings shooting. Not suffering from to hit modifiers makes tomb kings an army that can effectively win a shoot out against WE.
-Dwarfs are the other army that have a chance in a shoot out. It is kind of boring though and will be a close one against a savy WE general. If you can keep WE from your warmachines (difficult but not impossible) then you have a much better chance. Your big saving grace is your T4 which is a bad cost efficiency for the WE shooting.
-Skaven can MM the WE while their slaves shrug off the damage.
-HE can MM very very well, their BotWD is a horror for the WE to deal with as only the waywatchers are likely to lack enchanted arrows.

Getting into a shooting war with WE is a loosing proposition for most armies. The WE have a 30" range and they essentially will have 3 varieties of shooting to deal with;
1) trueflight glade guard; these guys will move to within 30" usually within a forest or behind skirmishers, shoot, and then keep you at long range with their free movements. GG will almost always get the drop on you and so they will always be 1 turn ahead in the shoot out and never suffer from negative to hit modifiers. Your chaff dies very quickly to these.
2) Deepwood scouts with hagbane arrows; these guys are skirmishers and can scout deploy. They also get to march and then shoot. Poison actually does very similar damage with a -2 to hit and +0 to hit therefore you will find your warmachines and monsters under attack turn 1 and very possibly dead.
3) Waywatchers; ignore armour saves is brutal against those expensive Sv1+/2+ units. The positive is that they loose a lot of umph from the negative to hit modifiers they tend to wrack up. The bad news is that they scout and skirmish so the only reason the get negative to hit modifiers is usually screening and you chasing the unit down. These guys are so expensive that even a single fireball going into them can often get you 40+ pts.

What that all means is that you will probably have to move forward to even be in long range. This leaves you at -3 to hit or worse (-1 long range, -1 move, -1 skirmish) and often at -4 or even -5...so unless you are tomb kings, have similar ranges, or don't roll to hit a shoot out is probably not the way to go.

Sorry for the text wall.

I think it depends really. Sisters of Thorn had like a 4+/4++ or something plus magic resistance 2. You can't magic that down unless you have a test or die spell. The only skaven spells that can are an I test or die (which isn't good vs a high I army like most elf units) and 13th spell (which can't be used on a unit that isn't specifically infantry).

This army is kind of weird to face. The triple warlock build definitely seems to work against it with my skaven (provided you have enough warpstone tokens). Also charging into woods against wood elves could be a bad idea since if you don't win the fight you aren't steadfast against them considering woods negates steadfast for a rank-and-file with its majority of models in the forest. A shooting contest might be possible but tough. Everything wood elves have for the most part is very fragile and this goes beyond normal dark elves and high elves fragile. It may be the most fragile in the game esp. for what they cost. I beat a wood elf army on my 2nd battle with them and I totally did not expect that for a new book. Perhaps my build was meant to take them down more frequently than not?

-------

Starfire arrows? It sounds like I missed out on facing that type of arrow. I can imagine it'd be painful against any in buildings, trolls and the abomination.

Wow actually now that I see it there seems to be 4 types of arrows. I only remember ever facing about 3 different types. Sheesh that sounds super handy.

Just a question what do all the types do? I only faced the one that avoids most armor, the ones that don't have negative modifiers and the poisoned ones.

Sisters are one of a select few units that are tough to kill. You also wouldn't want to depend on a fireball to handle a unit of 25 eternal guard or a Flock of Doom against tree kin. Still magic missiles work brilliantly against most of the book.

The new WE army book does a pretty good job of having a variety of builds that all work well. Tree spirit armies can work well with the correct support, MSU shooty works well, even melee based lists can work well. The overall linking attribute is that WE are fragile for their pts. Even treekin are fragile for their pts as fire makes short work of them and they will often wear down to most other anvil units.

The arrows replace the bows stats (so keep that in mind when someone tries to claim armour piercing on arcane bodkins). They all have 30" range, S3, and volley fire. The varieties of arrows are;
-Arcane Bodkins: -3 armour save (only arrow without armour piercing, probably not seen a lot as costs nearly the same as waywatchers which are just better)
-Hagbane: posion and armour piercing (very common on deepwood scouts as they murder warmachines and monsters)
-Moonfire: Fire, +1 to wound vs. forces of order, and armour piercing (less useful as order has less regenerating monsters)
-Starfire: Fire, +1 to wound vs. forces of chaos, and armour piercing (more useful as chaos has lots of regenerating critters)
-Trueflight: No negative to hit modifiers and armour piercing (just awesome as it allows WE to be mobile, shoot through forests, shoot at long range, and kill skirmishers with impunity)
-Swiftshiver Shards: Multiple Shot (2) and armour piercing (sound great but fall flat due to the large negative to hit modifiers you are liable to take)

Waywatchers have an ability which while similar in many ways is different and in important ways. They also cannot take the above arrows (thank your chaos gods as with almost any of the above arrows two group of 10 would eliminate most armies by themselves)

if you have choice of lore. Lore of light is amazing. 2 magic missles, one that is flaming and can be boosted to S6 to smoke a treeman/tree kin, banishment is great for the chaff.

Target their wizards unit with net.
And pha's. timewarp can be good for catching them.

Some great ideas guys.

I tried out a different list the other day, using MSU idea with a unit of SM, 2 units of PG, a Lion chariot and a unit of dragon princes going down center, bolt throwers and archers supporting fire and a frost heart going down one flank. Good results, killed everything except the unit that teleported around. In hindsight probably should have shot/MM the teleporter unit more. (I used high magic with soul quench)

I find MSU a good idea! Going to try out more of it in the near future.

The last Wood Elf player I fought beat me. He went first which helped him a lot. However what he used was a very good list that is taking advantage of some early discovered wood elf weaknesses. He took a big unit of 'sisters of thorn' and threw his heroes in there essentially making them pretty much impervious to anything but test or die spells. He also took some 'sniper' model or character and death magic to snipe my magic missile wizards.

I definitely wasn't ready for that and it was effective. I guess i'll need to re-think my battle plan for next game.

So what's the game plan for WoC players? Casters out the demon hole and flying monster mash with hellstriders?

Use the Lore of Tzeentch. It works well against the woodies.

A bit of a given, but I indeed appreciate the response. What else would one suggest for a WoC list facing wood elves that won't be expensive pin cushions? Or much better yet, how best to use those expensive pin cushions? Our fast units (aside from cav) can't take a hit and don't like dangerous terrain, heavy cav has likely a 50/50 chance of being useful. See waywatchers. That leaves fast cav (marauder horsemen, yuck) tzeentch and slaanesh casters and flying monsters as far as I can tell.

BaalSNAFU wrote:
A bit of a given, but I indeed appreciate the response. What else would one suggest for a WoC list facing wood elves that won't be expensive pin cushions? Or much better yet, how best to use those expensive pin cushions? Our fast units (aside from cav) can't take a hit and don't like dangerous terrain, heavy cav has likely a 50/50 chance of being useful. See waywatchers. That leaves fast cav (marauder horsemen, yuck) tzeentch and slaanesh casters and flying monsters as far as I can tell.

Chariots.
Wood elves can kill T5 (poison shots) or good armor (waywatchers) but can't do both.
A few chariots with a daemon prince and super ward save flying BSB.

-Matt

Yup, Hortennse Lords are the way to go about it. High Armour and Toughness will give them pain.

 Wilytank wrote:

 Sasori wrote:

 Wilytank wrote:

 Pyeatt wrote:
... Drop pod in some salamandars and burn those Ent devils down.

The OP has later said that he plays High Elves. Only Lizardmen have Salamanders and even then I'm not sure what a drop pod is. Did you get that from the rough translation of a Slann's belch?

He's making a 40k joke.

No gak.

So...what's with your first comment, then? Was that also a joke?

 Pyeatt wrote:
... Drop pod in some salamandars and burn those Ent devils down.

THIS! Elves will be bowing down to you!!!

Wings of Purity wrote:
They are not magic items, there's nowhere on the book that says they are a magic item. Assuming something is a magic item because of it is taken for a few points and have special rules is like saying Tau is a combat oriented army because Kroots beat guardsmen...

The section they come in says that they're enchanted items...

All I know is that TO's in the Midwest and Mountain regions of the US have yet to reject a list with multiple units taking the same arrow type.

And frankly, the TO's opinions are generally the ones who matter unless you only play friendlies in which case, you should make it agreeable amongst your friends.


Edit: the drop pod joke got me chuckling as the visual is pretty funny.

 thedarkavenger wrote:

Wings of Purity wrote:
They are not magic items, there's nowhere on the book that says they are a magic item. Assuming something is a magic item because of it is taken for a few points and have special rules is like saying Tau is a combat oriented army because Kroots beat guardsmen...

The section they come in says that they're enchanted items...

And round we go again. They aren't magic items though, cos magic items are items you give to characters, not units.
The rules are written just badly enough for it to be argued either way, but most people seem to be leaning towards allowing multiples, I think.
Except the ones that keep being beaten by wood elves maybe!

Az

 Aben Zin wrote:

 thedarkavenger wrote:

Wings of Purity wrote:
They are not magic items, there's nowhere on the book that says they are a magic item. Assuming something is a magic item because of it is taken for a few points and have special rules is like saying Tau is a combat oriented army because Kroots beat guardsmen...

The section they come in says that they're enchanted items...

And round we go again. They aren't magic items though, cos magic items are items you give to characters, not units.
The rules are written just badly enough for it to be argued either way, but most people seem to be leaning towards allowing multiples, I think.
Except the ones that keep being beaten by wood elves maybe!

Az

They are magic items that don't follow the normal rules set for magic items.

If we follow your rules, the star lance stops being a magic item the moment I give it to my dragon prince champion. And thus becomes immune to Arcane Unforging. And the same goes for the Banner of the World Dragon.

Well no, because the Champion bought it from the magic item allowance. It says "magic items" and everything. Nowhere does it describe wood elf arrows as magic items. It does say they're enchanted items, yes, because they are items that are enchanted, but they aren't taken out of a magic item allowance, nor can they be Arcanely unforged. Because they aren't magic items.

So, you're saying that GW used the term "enchanted items", but weren't referring to a previously defined mechanical term, "Enchanted Items"?

Maybe? The thing is, GW thought to include a qualifying paragraph in the Armoury section (note they are here, not the magic item section) which reads "They are enchanted items but do not prevent a model from having a second enchanted item".
In doing to they clarified that rules question (ie. "does the arrows stop a character having a second enchanted item?"), but in doing so have created this rules muddle.

There is no further mention of enchanted arrows as magic items, and they are listed separately from magic items in the character entries in the army list.

Nowhere in the book at all does it say they can be only taken for one unit. Nowhere in the book at all does it say they must be taken from the character's magic item allowance. Nowhere does it refer to the as Magi items, per say.

That they are called "enchanted items" at all seems to be entirely from a fluff, not a rules point of view.
But there is that rules qualification, muddying the point completely.

I can understand the argument but it does seem to go completely against the rules as intended and seems to me to go mostly against the rules as written.

In just wish they'd hurry up and FAQ the darned thing once and for all.

So, the book says "they are enchanted items but do not prevent a model from having a second enchanted item". So...no. You're not trying to say there was a difference between "Enchanted Items" the game term and items that are enchanted.

The book says right there that they are Enchanted Items.
What are Enchanted Items? They are a type of Magic Item.

What rules do magic items have? Well, here are two of them:

1. a model can only have one magic item of each type.
2. a magic item may not be taken more than once per army.

The Wood Elf book gives us reason to ignore the first one. But it does nothing to address the second one.

There is absolutely no grounds to stand on in terms of whether or not they're magic items.
Now, if you wanted to point out that, when a unit of 15 Glade Guard takes a type of enchanted arrow, you've already broken the second rule 14 times, then you've got a case.

 Aben Zin wrote:

I can understand the argument but it does seem to go completely against the rules as intended and seems to me to go mostly against the rules as written.

In just wish they'd hurry up and FAQ the darned thing once and for all.

It's not an argument. It's people trying to ruleslawyer things to prevent builds that would wreck their otherwise "balanced"(read: Netlist) list.

As you mentioned, nowhere does it specify that each type of arrow is restricted to a specific unit.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Aben Zin wrote:

I can understand the argument but it does seem to go completely against the rules as intended and seems to me to go mostly against the rules as written.

In just wish they'd hurry up and FAQ the darned thing once and for all.

It's not an argument. It's people trying to ruleslawyer things to prevent builds that would wreck their otherwise "balanced"(read: Netlist) list.

As you mentioned, nowhere does it specify that each type of arrow is restricted to a specific unit.

I agree. Furthermore, there's also the precedent that you go with the Army Book rules if it contradicts the Big Rule Book. Like HE great weapons...they don't strike last. More's the pity.

So I think you can have more than one type of arrow in an army...you're certainly paying for them, at 3 or 4 points a pop! T3 and 17pt models is pretty intense risk, so it's not like this is really pushing the WE over the top in terms of strike power. The "Forces of Order" and "Forces of Destruction" ones are also only effective if you know who you're fighting. In a TAC list, you're paying a huge premium with no guaranteed payoff at all.

Actually in the case of HE great weapons (and all elf great weapons) it's more a case of ASF and ASL cancelling each other out, which is in the main rulebook.

 HawaiiMatt wrote:
Against many targets, a high elf with a long bow is better than Glade Guard. It's not saying that High Elf Archers are good, but rather that Glade Guard are fairly expensive for what you get.

Take the bodkins vs Brettonians.
BS 4, save -3, sounds good right?
But, it's 17 points a model.
A unit of 14 (248 points), downs slightly less than 2 knights a turn average at range.
Then what happens if brettonians take some longbowmen as well? If they have the arrows to kill a few knights, they don't have the arrows to kill a horde of bowmen.

This is unfair, You are judging Glade Guard by their worst option. I can't think of a single reason to take Arcane Bodkins rather then fork out the extra 3 points to get yourself a Waywatcher apart from maybe you already have filled up on Waywatchers, Even then i would choose Trueflight, simply because it is by far and away the best of the arrows, only rivaled by Poison.

In exchange to your point, i would make:

Take Waywatchers vs Brettonians.
Bs 5, Ignores armour, sounds good right?
But it's only 20pts per model.
A unit of 12 (240pts), downs 4 Knights a turn on Average at range.
What happens if Brets take Longbowmen as well? They simply swap to shoot two arrows each instead of one, still ignoring their armour due to AP. Not cost effective though, if you are facing Bretts and their are no Knights left to shoot, it's likely you've already won.

In the same vain Waywatchers are bloody murder to the Dragon Knight bus High Elves like to take. I take two units of ten Waywatchers in most large games and lets just say if they shoot at something on a turn The Withering goes off, remove said unit. Even if they don't get the Withering off they are still stripping models at a fast rate. Waywatchers are a great unit, Bodkin Archers...less so.

Wood Elf shooting is much more specialised now, and as such can struggle against standard rank and file - primarily due to the relative high cost of the elves. Wood elves could shoot a block of 50 clan rats all game and still not take it out altogether.

Against monsters (especially with only minimal armour) and war machines Hagsbane really shines; Skirmishers or anything hiding behind walls or garrisoning buildings fall quickly to Trueflight. Swiftshiver is generally not hugely efficient but becomes insane when combined with Hand of Glory.
The firey arrows are a only really worth taking if you know exactly you're facing, but otherwise too expensive, as are the Bodkins.

In defense of Star Fire arrows, as an opposing view i have been taking a unit of 15 of them to good effect. I would argue they do have their place in an all comers list even if you don't know what your fighting.

Flaming is generally a useful thing to have in an army, fact. Most monsters with Regen are from Forces of Destruction (Trolls, Helpits), fact. So +1 to wound and Flaming arrows means you can usually strip regen off of something that wants it. I wouldn't take more then 1 unit of them, but 1 unit is more then enough for the job.

 Kanluwen wrote:
It's not an argument. It's people trying to ruleslawyer things to prevent builds that would wreck their otherwise "balanced"(read: Netlist) list.

As you mentioned, nowhere does it specify that each type of arrow is restricted to a specific unit.

Whoa! Hostile, much?
I personally couldn't care less if you took one of each enchanted arrow or took all Hagsbane Tips. Running all Hagsbane might give you an edge, but it's not going to "wreck" my list any significant amount more or less than taking one of each.

Not sure what that comment about balanced vs Net lists is all about in this thread.

And no, the Wood Elf book doesn't say they're restricted. But it doesn't let you ignore the BRB, either. Again: it says they're Enchanted Items.

 pantheralegionnaire wrote:
I agree. Furthermore, there's also the precedent that you go with the Army Book rules if it contradicts the Big Rule Book.

Except there's no contradiction, here. Warhammer is permissive. No where in the Wood Elf book does it give you permission to break the rules in the BRB in this regard.

 pantheralegionnaire wrote:
So I think you can have more than one type of arrow in an army...you're certainly paying for them, at 3 or 4 points a pop! T3 and 17pt models is pretty intense risk, so it's not like this is really pushing the WE over the top in terms of strike power. The "Forces of Order" and "Forces of Destruction" ones are also only effective if you know who you're fighting. In a TAC list, you're paying a huge premium with no guaranteed payoff at all.

Except, if you can multiples, you run Hagsbane with a sprinkle of Trueflight.
But aside from that, I'm not arguing that you're stuck with 1 unit each of an enchanted arrow because it's too good otherwise. I'm not even arguing that you can't field multiple units with the same arrows at all.
What I am saying is, the BRB says you can only have one of each instance of magic item. And enchanted arrows are Enchanted Items.
...but since every model in the unit has that Enchanted Item, there's already an issue right there.
It's not set in stone. This is a pretty grey one.