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It's been a while, but I finally managed to get my Wood Elf army started by buying 3 boxes of Glade Guard and the old Battalion box at my FLGS. So, I am now sitting on;

72 Glade Guard
8 Glade Riders
12 Dryads

So, the question stands; what exactly should I nab to round out the force? I've been considering running 3 groups of 20 Glade Guard, 2 groups of 5 Waywatchers, and 2 Waystalkers. I might use the Glade Riders and Dryads in the future, but I just don't know how well they will work in such low numbers.

Well you need to get some characters. Some spellcasters and a high leadership lord to be your general.

 Unyielding Hunger wrote:

So, the question stands; what exactly should I nab to round out the force? I've been considering running 3 groups of 20 Glade Guard, 2 groups of 5 Waywatchers, and 2 Waystalkers. I might use the Glade Riders and Dryads in the future, but I just don't know how well they will work in such low numbers.

Seems good. Depending on what direction you want to go in (all shooting or some counter-attack) I would pick up some wild riders, or the hawk rider guys if you can stomach the models. Sisters of the Thorn are another cool unit worth considering. They make a nice bunker for wizards, too.

Treekin and treemen's hitting power got nerfed a bit, but they're still nice for their points if you're looking for some tougher units.

 Warptide wrote:

 Unyielding Hunger wrote:

So, the question stands; what exactly should I nab to round out the force? I've been considering running 3 groups of 20 Glade Guard, 2 groups of 5 Waywatchers, and 2 Waystalkers. I might use the Glade Riders and Dryads in the future, but I just don't know how well they will work in such low numbers.

Seems good. Depending on what direction you want to go in (all shooting or some counter-attack) I would pick up some wild riders, or the hawk rider guys if you can stomach the models. Sisters of the Thorn are another cool unit worth considering. They make a nice bunker for wizards, too.

Treekin and treemen's hitting power got nerfed a bit, but they're still nice for their points if you're looking for some tougher units.

Would you argue that Glade Guard don't need a command in favor of a banner or arrows?

Glade Guard should have a Musician, to help them rally.
Arrow-wise, the best options are always Hagsbane and Trueflight.

I think Hagsbane are better on Riders, typically. Because they're better at getting into position, and thus shouldn't have to deal with as many penalties.

Wildriders are great. Warhawks are very good. The Sisters of Thorn and Waywatchers are just incredible.

Dryads...are bad. No way around it.

Treekin are good at what they do, as are Treemen. Just a different sort of play style than the rest of the army.

Alright, I'll start getting to work on a few musicians. I'm still waiting on my rulebook and new codex to come in, but I got a fair grasp of the changes that have come around. Just correct me where wrong on this next bit.

My plan is to take a few of these Waystalkers, and depending on their allowances, I might try and slap a Moonstone of the Hidden Paths on them with a group of Glade Guard with Hagbane. You can shoot only in the front 2 rows, right? If I make a double line from a 20 man unit, that should make it fairly easy to wipe out an engine a turn if I simply jump around the board.

So far, my two main opponents will, Ironically enough, be a High Elf player as well as a Dark Elf/Skaven player. As it stands, with the units I have, I have no...I guess you guys call them bunkers? Glade Guard are simply archers, and with light cav and dryads, I have quite a few flankers, but no real force to actually hold a unit. Would Treekin be that bunker to sit out on the front line to hold off other bunkers of spearmen, clanrats, etc?

For my money, the best thing to actually hold a unit in a Wood Elf army is the Eternal Guard. While they're not tough or heavily armoured, a high ld and Stubborn means that your opponent will basically have to kill all of them if they're his way - by which time you'll hopefully be charging at his flanks with some wild riders!
Treekin, while tougher, tend to lose badly to combat res as they haven't the damage potential to counteract ranks and banners.
Treemen make a good anvil too as they are both tough and stubborn! Be wary of being poked slowly to death though; that and cannonballs.
Treeman Ancients can somewhat mitigate any wounds they suffer in combat by casting life spells and regaining lost wounds like that - though, of course they are expensive.

As for Hagsbane, deepwood scouts are pretty good with them, as their scouting abilities let them get close enough to avoid to many to hit penalties while skirmishing allows them to avoid too much return fire.

Waystalkers are not usually that effective, alas, except in numbers because usually the penalties for multiple shots, sniping and long range mean you're hitting at a 4+ anyway, and wounding at a 4+ at best. That said, they can provide a useful way to remove irritations such as low level mages (that usually don't warrant a ward save protection), BSBs and unit champions.

A bunker is a unit that hides characters, protecting them from getting singled out by shooting or magic. These units are often missile troops, since they don't want to get in combat, anyway.

An "anvil" is a unit that's supposed to take an enemy charge and holds the line, allowing you to counter-attack, often with a "hammer".

A "tar pit" is like an anvil, though it usually survives combat through sheer numbers and Steadfast, and doesn't do much else besides die.

Eternal Guard are weird. They're fairly cheap and Stubborn, but...they're terrible, otherwise. Fragile and ineffective. Still, I'd you want to hold the enemy down, these guys can do it.

Wood Elves, though, don't really need anvils or tar pits. They avoid the enemy, whittle them down, and charge in to finish them off.

Warpsolution wrote:

Eternal Guard are weird. They're fairly cheap and Stubborn, but...they're terrible, otherwise. Fragile and ineffective. Still, I'd you want to hold the enemy down, these guys can do it.

Terrible? Not in my experience. While they haven't high strength or impenetrable armour they're pretty boss when it comes to spearmen. What other races can boast WS5, I5 spears with Always Strikes First and AP?

Stick a shadowdancer in with them and put them in venom thicket and they can see off, well pretty much anything.

S3 T3 with a minimal save and for that point cost is not a good deal.
They can see off pretty much anything? I'd need to see the numbers to even begin to believe that.

I charge them with a block of Clanrats. 15 attacks means 13.5 hits, 6.8 wounds, 4.7 after saves.
I swing back with 10 attacks, 5 hits, 2.5 wounds, 1.7 after saves.

That's a distressingly close fight, considering the cost per model.
And if the Guard are in a Venom Thicket...I'll ignore them. And if you start trying to throw Hexes and Augments into the mix, then I will, too.

Eternal Guard cannot win the day on their own. They hold the enemy--and are really, really good at it.
A list with lots of these guys will play a lot differently than a typical Wood Elf list. Because Wood Elves don't really need to holds down the enemy all that much.

True, but it depends on your play style. I actually find them useful for giving your opponent a solid, fairly static thing to direct his forces toward, unlike the other, more manoeuvrable elements.

What I usually do is actually place my venom thicket toward the centre of the board and move the eternals into it- hopefully tempting the opponents into a foolish charge.

In one game I played against dwarfs, 20 Eternals with a shadowdancer and fighty lord (Other Tricksters shard and Daith's Reaper) were charged in the front and the flank by 25 Warriors and 20 Longbeards and beat both handily.

Like I say though- it really comes down to play style.

...yeah. Play style. Like I said: an army with them in it will play differently...

That seems grossly unlikely.Hitting on 3's or 4's, wounding on 5's...yeah, I'd have to see the numbers on something like that.

And why would an opponent ever be tempted to charge you, besides their own inexperience?

Charging into a wall of poisonous armor piercing spears hitting on 3+ with re-rolls, and re-rolling 1's to wound doesn't seem like a good idea. Add in a pair of fighting characters, and I'm stuck scratching my head at that decision.

-Matt

Warpsolution: Army. Not angry. That tiny little typo got my head scratching for a good 5 minutes!

HawaiiMatt: I suspect inexperience did play it's part there - and the fact that he was outnumbering me 2 to 1 with a charge on my flank may have made him a touch overconfident!

I must admit that I do play entirely casual games against my friends, so my tactical advice isn't tempered on the forge of tournament play exactly...

15 attacks, hitting on 3's with re-rolls...13.3 hits, 3.3 Poison. 10 hits, wounding on 3's, re-rolling 1's...4 wounds, 7.3 tota, 6.1 after saves.
10 attacks back, on 4's, 5 hits, 4.2 wounds.

1 attack to the flank, .3 Poison, .3 other wounds, .2 after saves. 10 attacks back, 5 hits, 4.2 wounds.

So, before your characters, the score is 6.3 (or 7.3? Do the Asrai get to keep ranks in forests?) to 12.4.
I guess I can see how it might be fairly close, but...yeah. Them Dwarfs have the upper hand.

(assuming 5-wide formations, great weapons on the Warriors and shields on the Longbeards, no champions in any unit and standards in all)

Hey guys, I am going to be honest. Mathhammer is not my strong suit, and I only understood about half of what you two are discussing. That being said, perhaps you guys can help me out with something.

I am still waiting on my rulebook to some in, and I got my new codex I'm just a few days ago. What exactly is the benefit between deepwood scouts compared to waywatchers? Beyond a point of BS, the Multiple Shot vs Aimed Shot option seems pointless as both are armed with armor piercing bows. It seems like scouts are far more cost effective.

Deepwood Scouts impose a -1 to armour, waywatchers ignore it. That is massive, that is the difference between Skullcrushers getting a 2+ Sv or no Sv at all.

Now consider that the closest comparison is a Scout with Arcane Bokins which imposes a -3, that model is 18pts. For those extra 2 pts, you ignore all armour, get +1 Bs, option for multiple shots and an extra hand weapon. Waywatchers are way more cost effective at their role then Scouts are.

However, Scouts and Waywatchers don't have the same role all the time. Give Scouts Hagbane and they give ranged poison that will always be in range of what you need and can heavily damage models that rely on Toughness (E.G War machines) that Waywatchers can't touch. So you should take Waywatchers and Wild Riders to deal with armour and Hagbane Scouts to deal with War Machines and Trueflight Glade Guard to deal with chaff/Skirmishers. Everything has a niche.

Well then... since my major opponents are the other elven races, and both players have quite a few bolt throwers, it seems hagbane scouts are a better investment, especially since they also seem to be big fans of dragons, pheonixes, and war hydras. Then again, I suppose a few bricks of wildwood rangers would be good as well.

Against Elves is where Waywatchers really come into there own! Think about all the units the other Elves regularly take with good armour saves, White Lions, Dragon Princes, Silver Helms, Pegasus Masters, these are units your other units can't touch.

Also remember Magic Arrows make your attacks magical, so if the High Elf takes BotWD then magic arrows will do naff all to that unit. However Waywatchers are non-magical and will happily slice through that Dragon Prince bus 1 and a time.

Finally, Wildwood Rangers are a trap. Wild Riders do what they do (Lots of Str 5 attacks) but are faster, have a save and retain ASF.

Interesting. Most of the main characters around are either princes on gryphon or Morathi on a Pegasus. Beyond that, I do have a large number of silver helms to handle. Ironically enough, the dark elf player has quite a bit more skaven, but he doesn't seem to want to finish assembly on them. Beyond that though, he uses a good amount of heavy cavalry, crossbowmen, ballista and some form of infantry.

Against elves, waystalkers become actually viable. You need two or three, but they effectively threaten all the enemy's characters.

 Unyielding Hunger wrote:
Mathhammer is not my strong suit, and I only understood about half of what you two are discussing

That if 20 Eternal Guard sitting in a Venom Thicket are charged in the front by 25 Dwarf Warriors and in the flank by 20 Dwarf Longbeards, the Guard would, on average, score a total of 6.3 CR, where the Dwarfs score 12.4.
Just trying to determine how likely a given situation was. Turns out, very unlikely.

Vetril wrote:
Against elves, waystalkers become actually viable. You need two or three, but they effectively threaten all the enemy's characters.

Which highlights the issue with Longbows in general.

They're garbage for the points bump that it adds to a model.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Vetril wrote:
Against elves, waystalkers become actually viable. You need two or three, but they effectively threaten all the enemy's characters.

Which highlights the issue with Longbows in general.

They're garbage for the points bump that it adds to a model.

Str 3 just isn't representative of what an arrow does to a human, imho, but you can still make it work, certainly if you use wood elf archers.

Warpsolution wrote:

 Unyielding Hunger wrote:
Mathhammer is not my strong suit, and I only understood about half of what you two are discussing

That if 20 Eternal Guard sitting in a Venom Thicket are charged in the front by 25 Dwarf Warriors and in the flank by 20 Dwarf Longbeards, the Guard would, on average, score a total of 6.3 CR, where the Dwarfs score 12.4.
Just trying to determine how likely a given situation was. Turns out, very unlikely.

Hitting dwarf warriors on 3+ with re-rolls to hit, poison, armor piercing and re-rolling 1's to wound puts the rank and filing scoring 10.79 wounds before saves. Characters add another 5.3 wounds.
It's 16 wounds, save -1.

Winner is going to come down to who rolls more 6's for poison.

I think I forgot about re-rolling those 1's. Maybe. Hm. I guess the characters help quite a bit...still seems awfully high to me.
...but then, regardless, I'd just ask why I'm charging you in the first place. No reason to go after a Stubborn, character-heavy block with Poison and AP when there are so many other choices.

Warpsolution wrote:
I think I forgot about re-rolling those 1's. Maybe. Hm. I guess the characters help quite a bit...still seems awfully high to me.
...but then, regardless, I'd just ask why I'm charging you in the first place. No reason to go after a Stubborn, character-heavy block with Poison and AP when there are so many other choices.

Which, IMO, is one of the biggest issues with a lot of the Wood Elf stuff.


The first time someone plays against it? It seems incredibly broken. But past that, it's an army where if the opposition has even a slight inkling as to what the army can do--they bring minor tools to wreck the Wood Elf player.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Warpsolution wrote:
I think I forgot about re-rolling those 1's. Maybe. Hm. I guess the characters help quite a bit...still seems awfully high to me.
...but then, regardless, I'd just ask why I'm charging you in the first place. No reason to go after a Stubborn, character-heavy block with Poison and AP when there are so many other choices.

Which, IMO, is one of the biggest issues with a lot of the Wood Elf stuff.
The first time someone plays against it? It seems incredibly broken. But past that, it's an army where if the opposition has even a slight inkling as to what the army can do--they bring minor tools to wreck the Wood Elf player.

Yeah, that block has to be in the woods to be effective. IMO, the wood elf thing should have been charging into, charging out of, or fighting in woods, gain a 3rd rank and re-rolls of 1's to wound. It's make the combat infantry so much for viable.

-Matt

Meh.

It should have been that the units would gain a Ward save and force an additional -1 to whatever modifiers enemies shooting at them had. It was a joke that they literally just took the name of the special rule that Waywatchers had and copy/pasted the other two Elf book rules in with the caveat of "in a Citadel Woods".

The whole "gain a 3rd rank and re-rolls of 1's to Wound" will hopefully be applied to all Elf books and give room for something new and unique.

Warpsolution wrote:
I think I forgot about re-rolling those 1's. Maybe. Hm. I guess the characters help quite a bit...still seems awfully high to me.
...but then, regardless, I'd just ask why I'm charging you in the first place. No reason to go after a Stubborn, character-heavy block with Poison and AP when there are so many other choices.

Because you're a dwarf and if you don't then I'll be charging you, only this time you won't have your friends charging into my flank?

It's also worth considering that in that situation the eternal guard are stubborn whereas the dwarves are not, so they have to be lucky every round with their attacks, but the elves only have to be lucky once. Or twice. They're still dwarves after all.

To return to the topic a little, ALEXisAWESOME is one the money here. If you're fighting Silverhelms, you'll be wanting Waywatchers. If you're facing White Lions, you'll be wanting Waywatchers. If you're facing White Lions with the dreaded Banner of the World Dragon you'll DEFINITELY be wanting Waywatchers!

Az