Wood Elves..my speculation for the new book.

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Gwill_of_the_Woods
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Re: Wood Elves..my speculation for the new book.

Post by Gwill_of_the_Woods »

Dalsgaard wrote:Maybe the strangelroot could be artillery dice, s5, AP, 6" from treeman OR 6" from any forest edge? That would make the treeman warmachinish without making him a stonethrower, and giving us something to deal with high toughness/high armour units.
That would be an amazing idea! :D I love this! Especially if it were coupled with a new spell from Athel Loren that allowed us to summon a new forest.
Long live the King in the Woods!!!
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Re: Wood Elves..my speculation for the new book.

Post by Coyle_Ravane »

Findecano wrote:
Phil Rossiter wrote:Personally I feel that Steadfast is not the worst thing out there for Wood Elves.

1+ armour yes, Flaming cannon yes, Steadfast not so much. We have Treemen, Eternal Guard, Ranked up archers. Shooting, redirection, combo-charges.
I totally agree, I've never really had a problem with steadfast! the reality is that before steadfast existed a single squad of Wardancers were never going to slice and dice a unit of 50 night goblins with general and BSB support in one round anyway.

Most steadfast blocks can be dealt with by sustained bowfire and a combo charge from a few small heavy hitters like small dryad/Wardancer/big tree units.

Deathstar builds can be a major problem, and we tend to have to rely on our lord level casters to deal with them. That is one of the reason I've switched to the lore of beasts almost all the time now, amber spear is about the only thing we have that can deal with high save MC, and curse of anhreir is excellent for combatting enemy elite infantry or knights.
Well, before steadfast, you could throw a unit of 5 glade riders into the enemies flank, denying rank bonus, with the +1 for flank cancelling out the goblins +1 for outnumbering, meaning equal static cr, while the wardancers could swing it by 9 wounds or more. Even ld10 would need snake-eyes. You could also do the same thing with dryads and wildriders to auto-break enemies by outnumbering with fear causers.

Now, glade riders will almost never disrupt ranks (you need 10 in 2 ranks AFTER the enemy attacks back against your t3 6+ elves), and your dryads/wardancers are unlikely to have enough full ranks to prevent steadfast.

High save models are a problem, but I think that was always meant to be one of our weaknesses, rather than one brought about by the changing editions.
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Re: Wood Elves..my speculation for the new book.

Post by Phil Rossiter »

Steadfast is really important. Infantry blocks are currently under siege and are rarely seen in some places. Even with it, they have to be played well and have good support from other elements to work. As said, there are good counters to it in the WE book, Treemen and ranked infantry. MSU WE armies have the shooting and board control to reduce blocks to a breakable size. Disruption only effects rank bonus, not Steadfast. Breaking Steadfast is all about killing enough models. If you have a rank, you need to reduce them to one full rank only (say get a Horde down to 14 models).

Fair point about the tough targets. I've felt for 15 years that the biggest advantage HE's have over WE's is access to RBT. But I personally will not be happy if the new book showers the army with ASF, true Wards, combat buffs etc. but does not address this issue. It is no fun at all stomping half the army books out there and getting stomped by the other half.
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Re: Wood Elves..my speculation for the new book.

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Gwill_of_the_Woods wrote:
Dalsgaard wrote:Maybe the strangelroot could be artillery dice, s5, AP, 6" from treeman OR 6" from any forest edge? That would make the treeman warmachinish without making him a stonethrower, and giving us something to deal with high toughness/high armour units.
That would be an amazing idea! :D I love this! Especially if it were coupled with a new spell from Athel Loren that allowed us to summon a new forest.
Exactly! And combo-tactics is how we win games with WE. That is why I love playing them.
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Re: Wood Elves..my speculation for the new book.

Post by Gwill_of_the_Woods »

As seen on the rumours thread. I was totally hoping for and speculating that they would redo the Hawks with Owls. I really hope that is true.

I think EG will just be renamed as spearmen and be an upgrade for Glade Guard, rather than losing all of the models.
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Re: Wood Elves..my speculation for the new book.

Post by Avian »

Owls would be pretty cool and give the WE something a bit different and unique and would fit nicley with the more woodland creatures that was bench discussed earlier.

As for the eternal guard Vs GG with spears thing, it's possible that the EG will stay in the book and get a few bonuses but no new models and we GG get the option to take spears but not as many bonuses as the EG so that they can be a dual kit similar to the HE spearmen and Lothern Sea Guard.
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Re: Wood Elves..my speculation for the new book.

Post by popisdead »

Coyle_Ravane wrote:Well, before steadfast, you could throw a unit of 5 glade riders into the enemies flank, denying rank bonus, with the +1 for flank cancelling out the goblins
Except you couldn't. GR fed combat res to your opponent more than they accomplished the above. Goblins will hit on 4s and wound on 4s. You could expect a couple wounds to get through and then you lose your rank breaking and flank.

The biggest problem with Steadfast for Wood Elves is we lack a reliable cheap way to build it. In fact apart from lucky Dweller's Roll we lack all 3 big tickets in 8th edition. If we had a reliable Horde unit (30+ dryads w/ ASF or Hatred and buffed) a cheap steadfast unit (6 to 7 point EG) and access to a couple reliable 6th spells (pit, sun, etc) we'd not be the bottom army in the game. These are the mechanics 8th edition is built upon and this is what you should be looking at with a new book if you want to feel the re-write is a success or failure.
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Re: Wood Elves..my speculation for the new book.

Post by Coyle_Ravane »

popisdead wrote:
Coyle_Ravane wrote:Well, before steadfast, you could throw a unit of 5 glade riders into the enemies flank, denying rank bonus, with the +1 for flank cancelling out the goblins
Except you couldn't. GR fed combat res to your opponent more than they accomplished the above. Goblins will hit on 4s and wound on 4s. You could expect a couple wounds to get through and then you lose your rank breaking and flank.
You only needed 3 to break ranks, due to unit strength 2 each model. Since you hit first with 5 attacks hitting and wounding on 3+, as well as the damage from thewardancers in the front, you were unlucky if you lost 1 gr against stuff like gobbos, and it usually worked even against tougher opponents. Remember that casualties reduced the number of return attacks back then, which was crucial for our fragile troops.
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Re: Wood Elves..my speculation for the new book.

Post by Phil Rossiter »

popisdead wrote:The biggest problem with Steadfast for Wood Elves is we lack a reliable cheap way to build it. In fact apart from lucky Dweller's Roll we lack all 3 big tickets in 8th edition. If we had a reliable Horde unit (30+ dryads w/ ASF or Hatred and buffed) a cheap steadfast unit (6 to 7 point EG) and access to a couple reliable 6th spells (pit, sun, etc) we'd not be the bottom army in the game. These are the mechanics 8th edition is built upon and this is what you should be looking at with a new book if you want to feel the re-write is a success or failure.
Have to disagree with this. It might have been the case in early 8th but the metagame has moved on I feel. Horde infantry can work but they are vulnerable to an awful lot of things, they need to be very killy and/or Stubborn now. Similarly a deep, cheap unit has uses but High Elf spears for example are generally looked down on and it's not because they cost 9pts each. If they were 2/3pts cheaper they still wouldn't be great IMHO, the problem is they can't kill anything. EG are better at this and have Bodyguard which means they aren't completely hopeless.

You can lose a game to a lucky Purple Sun if you're a low I army but casting it repeatedly is not a reliable strategy for winning if the other guy has decent magic defence. Magic varies, Coven of Light, High Magic spam phase, Siggy Slann, all of these are threatening, without relying on a single big spell. The problem WE magic has is a lack of extra PD or re-rolls to force spells through. Plus the lack of lore flexibility on the mages.

The emphasis of the game has moved to being able to kill tough or heavily armoured targets IMHO. Wood Elves struggle to do this and it's what needs fixing. How do we kill Beasts of Nurgle for example?
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Re: Wood Elves..my speculation for the new book.

Post by iampetty »

Phil Rossiter wrote:
popisdead wrote:The emphasis of the game has moved to being able to kill tough or heavily armoured targets IMHO. Wood Elves struggle to do this and it's what needs fixing. How do we kill Beasts of Nurgle for example?
I would argue the main issue with the Wood Elf book is just being outdated in terms of points costs. The actual choice of units is pretty good. You've got semi-elite infantry in Eternal Guard, Basic (more elite than most) shooting in Glade Guard, elite shooting in Waywatchers (Assuming they get tweaked), Great Heavy Monstrous Infantry in Treekin, Anvil Monster in Treemen, T3 infantry mulchers in Wardancers, Elite Fast Cavalry in Wild Riders, Super Mobile shooting Flying Cav in Warhawks, and of course Magic users.

IMO, there's an answer for everything that can be found in the WE book (except for a Frostheart Phoenix), the problem is just that you can't possibly afford to cover your bases.
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Re: Wood Elves..my speculation for the new book.

Post by Phil Rossiter »

It's a good point, expense is a major weakness of the book.

But there are so many tactical holes in it. Big trees are good against slow stuff but it's fast things that are the issue these days. Plus they are horribly vulnerable to anything with high strength Flaming attacks. The fighting elves don't hit hard enough and die too easily. The shooting is generally good but can't deal with 1+ saves or flying monsters. The magic is the worst in the game.
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Re: Wood Elves..my speculation for the new book.

Post by Coyle_Ravane »

Phil Rossiter wrote:It's a good point, expense is a major weakness of the book.

But there are so many tactical holes in it. Big trees are good against slow stuff but it's fast things that are the issue these days. Plus they are horribly vulnerable to anything with high strength Flaming attacks. The fighting elves don't hit hard enough and die too easily. The shooting is generally good but can't deal with 1+ saves or flying monsters. The magic is the worst in the game.
But these are all issues which can be fixed to a large extent through point adjustments and slight tweaking to bring us up to date, certainly these problems weren't there when our current book was new.

High armour is the exception, but armies should have weaknesses as well as strengths, and I think that was intentionally one of ours. It's also not as bad as people make out, I'm only recently returned to warhammer after an absence since the beginning of 8th, but I've already watched another WE player use treekin with wildform munch through dwarven ironbreakers, and wildriders under the same spell annihilate empire knights. It's a weakness, but not a crippling one from what I've seen so far.
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Re: Wood Elves..my speculation for the new book.

Post by Phil Rossiter »

The rules and other army books were totally different when the WE book was new.

The lack of ranged high strength attacks makes us too easy to play against. There are builds that can do well against most things. But each one has match-ups that utterly destroy it. Most army books can build to give themselves a fighting chance against anything. For example the old HE book wasn't great. But it didn't have the chronic weaknesses that the WE book has.
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Re: Wood Elves..my speculation for the new book.

Post by Coyle_Ravane »

Phil Rossiter wrote:The rules and other army books were totally different when the WE book was new.

The lack of ranged high strength attacks makes us too easy to play against. There are builds that can do well against most things. But each one has match-ups that utterly destroy it. Most army books can build to give themselves a fighting chance against anything. For example the old HE book wasn't great. But it didn't have the chronic weaknesses that the WE book has.
Like I said, that is just the age of the book, no huge changes are needed, just tweaking and point adjustments. Hopefully we get a decent New unit or two aswell, but it's not needed.
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Re: Wood Elves..my speculation for the new book.

Post by popisdead »

I thought over time with other books being updated WE would come into their own but there have been too many things like Skullcannons, Chimeras and such. The Wand of the Wych Elm/Cluster combo got better but WE took a hit and couldn't deal with high Armour. Lacking steadfast hurts.

Also I believe it was 5 RnF to deny flank not unit Str but maybe you're right. At any rate banking on only losing 2 out of 5 still doesn't mean it worked. There was enough good infantry in 7th.
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Re: Wood Elves..my speculation for the new book.

Post by Phil Rossiter »

Even with the true Ward, big trees facing Daemons or Dwarfs will be flamed off the board in short order. Even with shooting Prowess buffs, archers will be unable to slow down WoC or 1+ save Empire. When you face a nails double-skillcannon list for example, the scale of changes needed becomes clear.
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Re: Wood Elves..my speculation for the new book.

Post by Jamesaet3 »

I do not want wood elves to get ASF, I would rather have them re roll misses at short range, or have ASF to be shooting based. Wood elves don't follow the high elf way anymore. We are the best archers in the warhammer world, and its time it is shown on paper.
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Re: Wood Elves..my speculation for the new book.

Post by Coyle_Ravane »

Jamesaet3 wrote:I do not want wood elves to get ASF, I would rather have them re roll misses at short range, or have ASF to be shooting based. Wood elves don't follow the high elf way anymore. We are the best archers in the warhammer world, and its time it is shown on paper.
But it would be tragic if WE went the way of so many other fantasy settings and became great archers but useless in close combat. ASF fits, and we need some close combat boosts, as well as shooting.
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Re: Wood Elves..my speculation for the new book.

Post by Avian »

Slight change of direction, the prowess for the other two elf armies starts with an 'm' so might out be marksman's prowess perhaps?
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Re: Wood Elves..my speculation for the new book.

Post by Gwill_of_the_Woods »

As far as I'm concerned, I don't think the new prowess rule should have to apply to every unit in the army. I mean all of our Elves are most likely going to get ASF and all of the Forest Spirits have all of the benefits that go along with being a forest spirit. We already have "Asrai Archery" which I genuinely think (and massively hope for due to the stand & shoot bonuses) will get simply re-dubbed "Quick to Fire".
If a unit doesn't have bows then so what, it will most likely be a combat unit which will have ASF or be a Tree-unit.
Forest strider is also an army-wide special rule. Maybe it already is our prowess :paranoid: ...Haha! :p
That way all of our units are covered.

My predictions:
All Elves- ASF, Quick to fire, forest strider
Forest Spirits- ItP, 5+ward save (true), magical attacks, forest strider

Wild Riders will get the bonuses of both as they Rock! Maybe if they had the true 5+ then the talismanic tats would provide MR1.

...it would be helpful if the Warhawk riders had some type of save too. Maybe they'll get Talismanic tattoos?!

I also think that only Glade Guard (with Glade Guard long bows) will get any strength bonuses etc. especially if they get QtF. It means stand & shoot from any distance/angle with no penalties. That's S4 shots if they get flank charged from close distance. That's awesome!
It would be nice for Way watchers to get S4 bows too, but unlikely.
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Re: Wood Elves..my speculation for the new book.

Post by Coyle_Ravane »

I will be surprised if it is only GG, as that is one of the simplest ways to start bringing us back up on par with other armies.

Quick to fire also doesn't necessarily need to be a special rule for the elves, we could get "Asrai bows" as a separate weapon type, with quick to fire as a characteristic of the weapon rather than the archer. This could even replace volley fire, as they are elite archers, used to shooting straight, like when hunting, not firing blind volleys.
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Re: Wood Elves..my speculation for the new book.

Post by Zimmonda »

My money is that wood elves will get a rapid fire bolt thrower (just like the other two armies) although I think a tree stone thrower would be more fitting. Asf will be there (it'd be seriously weird to have an elf army without it now). Wild riders and wardancers will have their unit cap removed. There will be some sort of great weapon infantry. (My bets on a combo great weapon+bow in special basically the old dwarf rangers). Warhawk riders will go down in points but I doubt they get a ward save. Orion wont get a workable points reduction but he will prolly stop being unstable. Way watchers will get a points reduction. Treemen will most likely have different point upgrades. Ie 20 points for strangleroots 25 points for +1 armor. I doubt we'll see a doom fire warlocks carbon copy but we will probably get some sort of branchwraith shenanigans. Dryads will lose skirmish. Glade guard will get the option to take spears. The prowess will most likely not be pure shooting based because then it only benefits some of the army as opposed to the other elves prowess which always benefits.

So my bet is itll look like this.

Spellweaver
Highborn
Orion
Drycha
Sisters
New generic hq
Level 3 branchwraith

Spellsinger
Branchwraith
Wardancer special character
Wild rider character
New unit character
Noble
Treekin hero

Eternal guard
Glade guard
Glade riders
Dryads
Scout guard

Great weapon infantry
Wardancers
Wild riders
Bolt thrower
Treekin
Warhawk riders

Treeman
Treeman stone thrower
Eagles
Way watcher
Treekin with bows
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Re: Wood Elves..my speculation for the new book.

Post by hutobega »

I doubt we will get a bolt thrower. High Elves and dark elves have always had them and we have not. ( I wouldn't argue if we got them) but its not very wood elf like. We don't defend walls we defend in a forest so skirmishing and movement. Treekin with bows.. sounds cool haha. Also i am all for a treeman that acts like a short range stone thrower. 18-24 inch range but kind of strong.
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Re: Wood Elves..my speculation for the new book.

Post by Phil Rossiter »

QTF does not let you shoot things outside your fire arc.

Pg 17 for how Stand and Shoot is a normal shooting attack.
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Re: Wood Elves..my speculation for the new book.

Post by Coyle_Ravane »

hutobega wrote:I doubt we will get a bolt thrower. High Elves and dark elves have always had them and we have not. ( I wouldn't argue if we got them) but its not very wood elf like. We don't defend walls we defend in a forest so skirmishing and movement. Treekin with bows.. sounds cool haha. Also i am all for a treeman that acts like a short range stone thrower. 18-24 inch range but kind of strong.
How about a monstrous infantry Alter as a mini-orion, complete with bolt-thrower bow? My favorite from all the wishlists and fan-dex army lists I've seen, and something like it would make sense as something we might actually get.
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