[jigplums]

what are peoples thoughts on woodelves in 8th?

I think the new magic items in the rulebook are a boon for the army, suddenly having access to decent armour and weapons for their characters. the improvements in magic and the way dispell dice are generated should help them out. right?

also waywatchers being able to march and shoot seems powerful, and the firing in 2 ranks to full effect means you can go for the mobile gunline alot more easily, in theory

but do all those mega blocked units put any bonuses to rights?

 

[Tim/Steve]

Im heading down the route of MSU with my WE more and more currently. They just arent powerful enough to smash through enemy armies or face up directly to those big bashy units of death (30 WoC with halberds, MoN and banner of rage anyone...). In fact Im rarely using the new items much at all, mainly because it tools the WE up to do something they arent particuarly good at in the first place.

I was taking a spellweaver with the wand of wychelm as my general, she could be have taken the talisman of preservation, but I found it a waste- either I didnt need it or was in a position where it just wasnt enough (even with a 4++ a spellweaver is quite squishy if you get her into a bad position).
Recently I've found need of a treeman ancient instead so Im able to take the annoyance and charge in to hold up a 'deathstar' unit for long periods, slowly trying to grind it down. This fits in with my MSU apporach...

more and more my metagame is moving to few large blocks of nasty troops (either a deathstar or a couple of mini-stars) which are great at killing big blocks of enemy but cant deal with MSU at all, since they can only kill 1 unit (plus magic) a turn meanwhile the WE army can surround and pincushion them (as it was always meant to). I still take a solid combat force, but not one which can overwhelm such big units one on one- I'm relying on the treeman ancient and wardencers plus glade riders occasionally. I'll charge in, do a lot of damage and then break and run.... except that I run in many different directions and if any 1 unit holds then the enemy cant pursue. Alternitively I'll charge the flank of such a unit with solo wardancers, giving 4 possible results-
1- I win, enemy breaks... very unlikely while steadfast, but wardancers are capable of getting sort of numbers of kills needed to kill steadfast.
2- I win, enemy holds/I lose and hold... 100pt units (of 250 with hero) holding bit enemy unit in combat for a turn or two... letting the rest of my army kill everything else then round on that unit.
3- I break, enemy pursues... whether or not they catch me I'll have pulled the enemy out of position and allow my glage guard to keep shooting them.
4- I break, enemy holds... If Im under 25% then I've probably lost my unit, otherwise Ive lost nothing from a VP point of view but have got some kills from the enemy unit, aiming for any characters that are either in the flank or made way to get to me.

I used similar tactics in my last few games- wardancers in the flank either smash small units (O&G, lizardman both getting smashed by them) or distract and try to pull large units out of position... they are especially good against those frenzied units that pop up- send a ~104pt wardancer unit of 5 models plus champ (or just drop the champ too) into the flank of a frenzied unit and then take the 4++, all you need is 1 left alive and that unit will be pulled away from your archers... giving you an extra turn of shooting (lovely).


Problem with MSU is that you are losing all the way through the game right up until you win... the enemy can pick up VPs easily enough, just not huge amounts of them, while you basically have nothing until you manage to finish off those huge units of doom (depending on how many points the opposition spent on outrunner units that you can easily kill and how cheaply you can 'block' the big unit- if a treeman ancient gets into one and then doesnt die or break you need very very little in order to win the game).

 

[ThaPinkPownerFatty]

dont waste your money on buying them for a tournament. i would say only play them if you like there fluff but not if you want too win with them.

 

[Jack96]

I think woodelves are amazing. normally I would lose games with my ogres but with woodelves I've won 10 games lost none and one was a draw
the wych elm wand is brilliant!!!

 

[Vaz]

Asrai are awesome. Unfortunately, they the definition of how warhammer should be played.

Yes. I said Unfortunately. They're just not currently up to the power of armies like Dark Elves, Empire, Dwarves and WoC, but that's the only reason I say unfortunate.

I also say they're the definition of warhammer in that they require near perfect balances of an army between combat and shooting, movement and anchors, shielding and sacrificing. Also, no matter how skillful of a general you are, they require some essence of good luck when playing.

So skill + luck = powerful wood elves (i.e if everything goes to plan, I've yet to see many people beat down 70 Toughness 7 Eternal Guard with a 5+ Ward Save. However, I do have to get the spell off, and if it's dispelled, especially before a Heavy Cavalry charge, it's mincemeat to the Eternal Guard).

I've heard MSU archers are far better as well, and with no need for skirmishers due to the 5x2, I suppose that could be viable now. And Treekin I'm coming to agree are MUST haves for any list.

 

[Tim/Steve]

Im getting along fine without the treekin... but I fully achnowledge they are a cornerstone army if you wish them to be. The only reason Im staying away from them is that I already have an ogre army, and if I was wanting to use treekin I would just break out the ogres instead and do it properly...

 

[Blue Liger]

I do admit MSU for Wood Elves do still work though you just now have to back them up with 1 or 2 big hitters instead of just ganging with 3 or 4 smaller units, my hammer unit I'm currently building is 40 Eternal Guard as I prefer them to Treekin - I know what Treekin can do it's nasty and really effective but money wise aswell they are not fun either so for now it's EG.

I'm still not sold on Glade Riders but then again I'm a Warhawk Fan, the main iupside I see of Glade Riders is in the fact they can take a standard and you can take more models.

Wardancers I haven't used yet and didn't before 8th came along but now I thinking of getting at least 8 or 10

 

[Tim/Steve]

Im using 2 units of 5 wardancers with champs, plus a hero with the baldes of loec. so for about 250pts total I have 2 units that can pump out up to 32 S4 and 5 S5 attacks on the charge... more if I cast call to the hunt on them once in combat. Though while that is impressive I mostly take them as blitzers- charging into big units and aiming to kill characters then either hold them up for a time or break and run.

Glade riders/warhawks probably fill teh same roll, but glade riders have the more longbows for their cost and have the vanguard rule- moving 30" before the enemy can make a move at all if you go first and then being able to shoot (or call tot he hunt into combat) is really impressive to see.

 

[Jack96]

I take 10 wild riders with a noble with annoyance of nettlings and then make them toughness 7 with 4+ regen

 

[Blue Liger]

I will soon be experimenting with a unit of 15 wild riders as you need 2 ranks now to get the ignore ranks in the flank and cavalry are hard to get multiple ranks with sometimes due to cost or the fact that when a unit of 10 is seen on the board it's the target of shooting mayhem but with the flesh to stone spell they become tougher now!

 

[lturismo]

My (limited) experience has shown me you can't just assemble a WE army and send them crashing into your opponent and expect to win. Every other army seems to have heavier, cheaper more capable close combat units than we do which can affordably be put in horde.

Alot of our units seem to have suffered due to the steadfast rule and that casualties are now taken from the back ranks so you're always hit back full force by the unit you charged and if they lose they roll unmodified Ld. Wardancers in particular, with only a 6++ save, and Wild Riders of K, with only a 5++ save, have a real problem when they're hit back by basically anyone, given their 3 toughness. I think wardancers are one of the coolest units, but at 18 points per dancer, I'm not sure when I'll put 'em in my army again :ireful2:

My first try at an MSU army was an unqualified success however, with 8-dryad units acting to intercept anyone who got too close to my 40 (15, 15 & 10) glade guard. I found that using a cheap small unit (96 for 8 dryads) to simply tie up a large unit and keep them away from doing more damage was very good, and often the Dryad fear worked and they won the combat anyway.

Dryads have been very good for me, but you have to be careful in using them as they get no rank bonus. Treekin are also great, but a cannon & fire magnet.

 

[Tim/Steve]

Yeah, I definately had a bit of an issue earlier with not being able to just throw my army at the enemy... played 2 games back to back and won both, but shouldnt have got either.

The first was against VC (Vlad, Konrad, Lv1 vamp, Lv1 necro, hoard of ~40 ghouls, 2 hoards of ~40 skelies, 3 wraiths inc shooty one and a corpse cart) and it really was a game of 2 halves. First half I couldnt roll for toffee, while the VC player basically didnt fail at anything he tried.. and was trouncing me until Vlad stupidly accepted the challenge of my ancient. 2 turns later I finally make him fail a few wards and he dies... failing his carsten ring save. Losing his general and main caster (and letting Konrad sink to Ld6 for hius frenzy/spidity) meant that the heart had gone from his army and the treeman finally made its weigt felt, tearing through the rest of his army (as well as my shooting finally being able to overcome raised ghouls and massacre them).

The second game was against a WoC army that I shouldnt have been able to scratch... and I essentially couldnt (Lv4 MoT on disc with 2+/3++, BSB on disc with 2+/3++, exalted hero, ~20 chosen MoT with shields, ~20 warriors with MoT and magic standard, ~30 marauders with flails, chariot and MoT warshrine). Long story short... luck was the winner in our game, with nothing happening as it should have: took me ~70 shots to kill a 3++ T5 4W chariot with my S4 glade guard, a miscast infernal gateway rolled S3 flaming and terrible dice saw my ancient take 6W in 1 turn... but the miscast then rolled a 3 (with puppet only managing a 1) so we also saw the Lv4 caster get sucked into the warp (both lords gone in 1 spell) and my waywatchers pinging hell outta the BSB but only getting 1, rather easily saved KB. After all that I won by attrition (the proper WE way), avoiding the warriors and chosen bacause I just didnt stand a chance (even attempting combat would have been suicide- I never even bothered to shoot either unit as I would never have been able to wipe them out to get their VP). The Lv4 killed himself, I shot down the marauders and the chariot (70 S4 shots into the chariot finally killed it) and I took down the warshrine at the end of turn 6 (my eagle had rear charged it and only took 1 wound, winnning by 2 but the shrine passed its Ld.... instead it flanking wardancers and rear charge from 5 glade guard to stack up CR in my favour enough for it to break and get run down).


All in all today Ive learnt that treeman ancients have the potential to beat armies by themselves if you can avoid the few counters that'll kill them... but that other then them there isnt a good counter to the strongest enemy units other then avoiding them, although with the right tactics reasomably cheap WE units can take on 'tricky' units. Other then that lots of glade guard and possibly glade riders constantly pinging enemy units will eventually take their toll, even against VC (as long as you knacker their vampires).
I dont think WE are as bad as everyone says they are, but while they remain a fun army to play the main emotion in the game is annoyance- the WE player will probably find it hard to do significant damage to any non-elf enemy, while most armies will struggle to catch the WE (especially in 8th with its reliance on fewer, more powerful infantry units).

 

[MidnightSun]

Are you sure that VC thing's right? Vlad's LD10, and only has Frenzy if Isabella dies. Konrad is the most beastly troop killer in VC, probably one of the best Heroes in the game at that, but him accepting a Treeman challenge doesn't seem right. Although Strength 5 and up to 12(ish) frenzied, ignoring armour save attacks goes a long way, it wouldn't cut it against a Treeman and he might have been Stupid on that turn.

Midnight

 

[Tim/Steve]

I had the names the wrong way round... what can I say, I get confused by the Von Carsteins.

Vlad (the Ld10 Lv3 lord) was kileld by the treeman. Managed to do 3W to me before he went though... mainly because I rolled really badly and he passed all his wards. When he finally did fail some he failed to revive himself and the game was over (very useful since I stupidly left my BSB in the wardancers that had gone into combat, meaning my only magical shooting and all my magical weapons were locked in combat with the cairn wraiths laughing at me army).

Konrad is great against troops, but easy to get round- my noble was I7 so could hit Konrad first so he avoided the hell out of me. WHen he finally couldnt avoid me anymore I rolled 1 hit (doh) and failed to get a killing blow (even with the use of my reroll- got a wound off him but so what against VC..). In the end I just shot his unit to pieces when the combat ended (Vlad was raising about 10-15 ghouls a turn before he died, so as soon as he was gone, and you added crumbling in Konrad's unit was toast).

 

[Alvraad]

Glade riders/warhawks probably fill teh same roll, but glade riders have the more longbows for their cost and have the vanguard rule- moving 30" before the enemy can make a move at all if you go first and then being able to shoot (or call tot he hunt into combat) is really impressive to see.

Warhawks have Vanguard aswell.
Along with a slew of other bonuses:
-1 to hit because of skirmish, as well as stomp and fly.

 

[neilbatte]

I've only played against wood elves once in 8th an it was a frustrating game.
With the new scenery rules for woods combining with spellsinging I was faced with 3 mobile minefields that also disrupted my movement and lines of sight for shooting getting worthwhile combats was difficult as was targetting the dangerous units that normally would be target priorities for my Chaos dwarfs the only real reason I won through in the end was the toughness of my dwarves and the indirect nature of most of my artillery.

 

[Tim/Steve]

Ive been finding treesinging and trees in general pretty rubbish. Trees still tend to split enemy armies, but they really dont have to, and moving a forest in front of cavalry is a nice bonus but its certainly nothing that couldnt be ignored.
I've found tree singing's direct damage to be the most useful ability... and then only if I can keep the fight in/around the forests, or trick the enemy into forgetting that my treeman ancient comes with a couple of treesinging bound spells.

 

[neilbatte]

I don't know about that , Given I was playing dwarfs a forest plonked directly in front of my main combat units was Quite frustrating especially as all 3 wood we were using had some sort of chompy effect if I just tried to walk through them.
He was using them as mobile cover as well so if it looked like I was setting up a charge 1 of the bloody woods would find its way in the charge arc.
When I just walked my hobgobs through a woods I lost quite a lot which was annoying and put me of trying with other units.

 

[Tim/Steve]

If you play woods right then there's only a 1in3 chance that they can do any damage at all to infantry, and then you wont know about that until you enter them anyway... and its only really a no.5 forest that hurts (poison attacks but its dangerous terrain). Well, a blood forest can also hurt infantry, but not directly

I'm not sure how the forests can move that much- they can move 1D3+1 inches a turn unless the WE player has the item which allows the spell to affect a forest more then once a turn... so my forests are noremally too slow for it to matter. Since the grand total is often 2 bound tree singings from my treeman ancient, a treesinging and 1 other spell on my spellsinger. Enemies can either just march straight through forests (I cant move a forest onto a unit) or just go round them... since each tree singing can only move a forest an everage of 2" (and I can't chain it on the same forest) the forest never moves fast enough to catch up with the enemy.
Although I do understand that it would be very useful against dwarves/empire gunlines as I can move the forest to block whichever units I want as they advance (but not the treeman).

 

[neilbatte]

He may have been cheating then as his forests were on average moving 5/6".
We rolled 3 5's for the forests which was unfortunate (Our group just determines what if any mysterious features we get at the start of the game and just leave a marker to cut time and confusion as were all fairly old and with the amount of editions we have to forget just to get to the current rules not including other games )
It didn't help that the forests were all quite large as it's what we had available but then if you invade athel loren then you have to expect trees I suppose.