1000pt First Battle Army List - Opinions and Advice Please

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ArcheryKat1984
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1000pt First Battle Army List - Opinions and Advice Please

Post by ArcheryKat1984 »

Hi All

First thanks for reading post, :)

Still very new to warhammer, and have spent too long painting instead of having battles, but I have my first battle against my boyfirends Dark Elves tomorrow,

My Army List is:

Noble with Arcane Bodkins
Spellsinger with Pageant of Shrikes

Cores
12x Dryads with Branch Nymph
10 x Glade Guard with Bowman
10 x Glade Guard

Special
3x Tree Kin

Rare
6x Waywatchers

Guessing his Dark Elf army will be:

Master with Addtional Weapon
Sorcress

Dreadlords on Cold One x 5
Corsairs x 20 with Handbows
Dreadspeads x 10
Darkshades x 10

Bolt thrower

Any tactics, advice etc greatly recieved. Many more battles ahead between these two forces.

Thanks

Kat
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Re: 1000pt First Battle Army List - Opinions and Advice Plea

Post by Raiderjb »

Welcome!

I've only been back playing for a few weeks but hopefully I can offer some reasonable advice.

Arcane bodkins are great for taking out those nasty cold one riders. But without Bow of Loren I struggle to see them getting their points worth. 1 shot with no armour saves isn't going to make the biggest dint. I'd prefer running a HODA (Hail of Doom Arrows) to bodkins personally. But then again I'd look at dropping both the noble and spellsinger for a spellweaver. I find that spellsingers with lore of athel loren and a noble with whatever gear frankly isn't going to make as much as an impact as a spellweaver with life or beasts. I know a lot of people disagree with me about taking a lord choice at 1000 points though!!

Branch nymphs are rarely worth their points and I'd personally keep the dryad unit to the minimum of 8. These points can be used to boost up your GG units instead.

On GG units I tend to find musicians are mandatory. The free reform has proved priceless time and time again. I really notice it when I'm missing that musician.

Treekin are a solid choice, and waywatchers should be able to take a whack at his cold ones.

What unit do you plan on hunting down his bolt thrower with? Great Eagles are normally brilliant for this.

As for tactics most of the people at my club run warlocks and dark riders so this isn't a list I'd be able to comment a lot on. Either way DE's these days are generally tough. Hopefully one of the other guys can give you more direction than I have with strategy and units to counter rather than the general advice I've given! Either way best of luck :)
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Re: 1000pt First Battle Army List - Opinions and Advice Plea

Post by popisdead »

If you wanted a sniper Noble some scouts/WWs would make more sense as would the Hunter's Talon. Arcane Bodkins on its own isn't effective.
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ArcheryKat1984
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Re: 1000pt First Battle Army List - Opinions and Advice Plea

Post by ArcheryKat1984 »

Thanks guys

Ok, so from replys, i've ditched the Arcane Bodkins for The Hunters Talon, will try Hail of Doom Arrows another day.

Reduced the number of Dryads and increased the number of Glade Guard and added Musicans to both units as plan to have them at either side of battle field.

My plan (hopefully) is to take out the bolt thrower with the Way Watchers and then if possible move onto the Cold Ones from flank (he always keeps the Bolt thrower at the back), while GG take on the Corsairs/Dreadspears/Shades. Then moving the Dryads and Tree Kin for close combat,

Fingers crossed, i'll update with a battle report when its over.

Thanks again.
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Re: 1000pt First Battle Army List - Opinions and Advice Plea

Post by Sidewinder »

Exchange the spite on your Spellsinger for the Ruby Ring of Rhuin. It's the same point cost but has longer range and will likely cause more hits. Also, this causes opponents to have to think about how to use dispel dice. With a level 1 mage, one simply throws all the dispel dice allowed at the only spell the mage may cast. That's why if I am using a level one Spellsinger, I will equip it with the RRoR.
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Re: 1000pt First Battle Army List - Opinions and Advice Plea

Post by godswearhats »

Agree with a lot of what Raiderjb said. Here's my advice.

Drop 4 Dryads and the branchwraith (+60)
Drop the Arcane Bodkins and replace with Hail of Doom Arrow (-5)
Add Musicians to both units of Glade Guard (-12)
Drop the Pageant of Shrikes and replace with Dispel Scroll (0)

Then you could just take some more Glade Guard with the extra points. Dryads are more maneuverable in small units, the Hail of Doom Arrow can delete units by itself, musicians are essential because you will be reforming and/or fleeing with your Glade Guard quite a bit, and a Dispel Scroll shuts down one of his magic phases.

I would also consider some other changes that could be a bit more drastic, without losing the overall feel of the list you've created.

Use the Waywatchers as Glade Guard Scouts (+42)
Drop the Spellsinger altogether and replace with a Noble BSB (+25)
Use the extra points to take two Great Eagles, or another unit of Dryads. If there are points enough, you could give one of the nobles the Ruby Ring of Ruin so that you have a magic phase at least.

In this way, you can still have scouts to take out his Bolt Thrower (it will take ~two rounds of shooting), but you also get rerolls for Ld tests.

Some stuff to think about! If you can squeeze in the second Dryad unit, I think you'll do great - S4/T4 troops against all of that T3 will be excellent.

Good luck!

(Arg, thought I'd hit submit, but had actually hit preview, so this is probably a little late)
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Re: 1000pt First Battle Army List - Opinions and Advice Plea

Post by Sidewinder »

How was your game?
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ArcheryKat1984
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Re: 1000pt First Battle Army List - Opinions and Advice Plea

Post by ArcheryKat1984 »

Well

i lost, (gracefully) :o

You can plan etc, but if the dice arn't in your favour you are doomed and i had really really bad dice. :cry:

Postive note: First turn went really well, and i took out the pesky bolt thrower with the waywatchers, and a chunk of corsairs with glade guard,

It was down hill from there.

Spell singer and all but 4 of one of the glade guard unit were taken out by a rather nasty supercharged soul stealer spell that i had no chance of dispelling, and i was too definsive in tactics and should have pushed forward with Dryads and treekin, hindsight is marvelous.

Eventually took out the mounted sorceress with the Dryads, but it was a bit too late, after a failed leadership test and another really unliky dice roll the treekin fled themselves off the table and out of the game, leaving the Cosairs and Dreadspears to take out the rest of the army,

However, i had fun, learnt alot about the game and another possible 1000pt battle to take place this saturday, first against the Dark Elves again and the second against Chaos Warriors if i beat the dark elves,

Thank you for all advice, i really appreciate it.

I will update this post with my chosen army but what i have available to pick from is:

Noble
Wardancer Noble

2x Spellsinger
Spellsinger with Unicorn

36x Glade Guard
12x Dryads
16x Glade Riders
7x War Dancers
6x Way Watchers
5x Treekin
1x Great Eagle

1 week to plan. :D
ArcheryKat1984
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Re: 1000pt First Battle Army List - Opinions and Advice Plea

Post by ArcheryKat1984 »

Army Version: 2

Noble with Hail of Doom Arrow
Spellsinger (Level1) with Dispell Scroll and Ruby Ring of Ruin

Core:
8 x Dryads
2 x Units of 12 Glade Guards with Musician and Lords Bowman in each.
3 Tree Kin

Special/Rare
6x Waywatchers.

Not many changes, have head round these units and didn't think the army got a good outing with the bad dice rolls, however appreciate any improvement advice.

Will be more aggresive and push forward.
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Re: 1000pt First Battle Army List - Opinions and Advice Plea

Post by brechttomme »

Seems like a solid list! The one minor thing I'd remove are the Lord's Bowmen. I feel there is really no need for them and the points are likely better spent on a single extra Glade Guard (unless you feel you need them for challenges of some sort?).

A little beginner's tip I always want to give to beginning WE generals is to always start by moving forward. ESPECIALLY with Glade Guard. It seems counter intuitive that you'd move archers closer to combat, but they can move and shoot without penalty, and moving forward means you get into short range (15") faster. This means more turns at S4 shooting, and it gives you a distinctive advantage. Mainly though, it gives you room in your backfield to flee into. If you had stayed near the edge of the board (shooting at long range almost all the time), and got charged by an enemy unit, there'd be nowhere to run to. It's much better to be able to flee (and possibly create advantageous situations for yourself) and lose a single turn of shooting, than to lose the unit of archers and lose their shooting for the rest of the game.

I hope that was understandable. Good luck in your battles, go beat up some vile Dark Elves!
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Re: 1000pt First Battle Army List - Opinions and Advice Plea

Post by Sidewinder »

Did you eliminate the bolt thrower from Waywatcher shooting or close combat attacks?
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ArcheryKat1984
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Re: 1000pt First Battle Army List - Opinions and Advice Plea

Post by ArcheryKat1984 »

Sidewinder wrote:Did you eliminate the bolt thrower from Waywatcher shooting or close combat attacks?
Way watcher shooting and Lord picking out with Hunters talon.
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