Defying convention

[Thornspear]

WE as an army defy convention, not the you line up here, I line up there and we run at each other typ of force.
Our versatility is awesome, allowing a multitude of roles and armies.

It all depends on the game situation, do you want results, a bit of fun, a chance to experiment?
Themed armies are a good place to begin defying convention (unless it is the conventional themed army, such as Forest Spirits).

I have played WE since 1995 and have marvelled at the different style of play they allow. I think it is good for the game, as WE present a challenge to a lot of conventional players. Using WE can be difficult, but rewarding. The guerilla stlye of warfare and the tactical challenges and versatility are the reasons to play WE.
A lot of newer players have played as WE based on "new army syndrome", where each new army is "better" than the rest and seems unbeatable (wait for the new Asur and the number of new Asur armies- this seems to be the trend at GW). This is not wrong, but often, as others have pointed out, there is a false impression of WE.

[Tethlis]

most people seem to think that I should drop one unit and take Glade Riders. I can't imagine why I would do that. m9 does nothing to replace 10 st4 shots at short range. my bowline does nasty things to opponents in two rounds of shooting, combined with the HoDA, and it forces them to come to me, said spider to fly Scouts and Great Eagles can bait and march block just as well and are cheaper than GR, and 5WW are the same price and can do much better.

I disagree. Glade Riders flee 3D6, rally, then move and shoot with full effectiveness in the same turn. We don't have another unit that can do that. Nothing beats Glade Riders for versatility. Other units may fulfill similar roles better, but those units can't do all the things that Glade Riders can.

Still, it will be interesting to see a shift towards more Glade Guard with the release of the new Asur. The usefulness of Glade Guard in a competitive setting will increase simply because of High Elves alone, and the presence of more Glade Guard may encourage players to find new uses for them. I look forward to seeing the ideas that players generate.

[nagualhost]

I will admit that fleeing GG have caused serious congestion in my deployment zone. moving only 5" if I want to shoot can make things tight on my side of the board, espescially if my opponent gets the first turn, but as I've said, I'm counting on my scouts and Eagle to slow my enemy down.

Its a stradegy that I'm still working on. it just makes deployment so much more criticle. I have tried Stand and Shoot more than flee, 10 more st4 shots just make them hurt so much more, but it means sacrificing my noble archers

I think I love them more for that

they lay down their lives for Loren

[Ariell]

I can see a lot of merit in Nagathi's Swedish-style composition calculation, not to to limit excess, but to help players know when armies are fairly evenly matched.

The armies I have used recently are in the -6 to +6 range and my opponents need to be aware of that.

Just so you know, here in Sweden we a armylist is never accepted for a tournament that have less then 7 in comp!!!, the most standard armys are around 13-17 in comp.
And I am sorry to say this to you ArchM.A. that the composition calculation isn't the work of Nagathi , the current work with the comp is being done by my gaming club: RogueTraders, and the person that has the main responsabillity is Johan Thulin ( I would call him the best woodelf player in Sweden ) and he has blamed himself for doing a such hard comp against Woodelves

And just to mention it, I have a high elf player (with a dragon and a lot of other fast units) at my club that loves to face woodelves, in his view the woodelves are a challange to overcome and he is very hard to win against as a woodelf player, since he knows how to beat us!

Most of the woodelves list I see at the club or in Sweden in total are a lot similar to the ones on the forum, maybe with a bit more close combat than normaly seen here at the forum.

[ArchMagosAlchemys]

I didn't for a moment think that it was Nagathi's work and did not intend to suggest to others that it was his work, which is why I referred to it as Nagathi's Swedish composition, but he did bring it to our attention and if you want to search for it on this site, knowing that Nagathi was the author of the post would be a big help.

If I knew I was not having to face 18PD, or Lord Kroak, I would not need so many dispel scrolls and mages to carry them which ruins my comp. Even so, I don't think that my 'normal' armies should get hammered so badly. It's the five units of Dryads and Wardancers that cripples my composition, aside from being WE in general. Neither I, nor my opponents, consider that to be excessive. I just ran the average of the last 5 armies I faced, and it was -6.2, excluding the Lizarmen with Lord Kroak because your scale makes no allowance or him.

Anyway, that's irrelevant. The system is fine, in general, in that you know what you are facing.

[Gropah]

I agree with AMA, a tourny with threshold-comp gives the advantage that you know you won't have to face a borked list.

[Hyarion]

I agree, I think the comp rules are great for providing a baseline for comparison, but feel that some things just aren't taken into account. For instance WE only have 4 units that can take standards (excluding the BSB) with one of them (EG) being somewhat rare to see on the battlefield.

Some armies rely on their magic offense in the same way we rely on our shooting and getting the charge off on our enemies. But penalizing them equally with other armies doesn't really do a good job, I feel, of providing a good comparison.

I don't like the way that some combos or units, while quite common, are penalized if they're not terribly overpowered.

[Mist Walker]

@Hyarion it would be complex but that problem could be solved by army specific com. ratings

[ArchMagosAlchemys]

The army specific composition penalties in the list that Nagathi posted is supposed to take into account the various army combinations. That too is fine and the right solution for the reasons Hyarion suggested.

To get to the very high levels that they expect in Sweden, however, will make many armies bland with less diversity. Although some might say that since there is often only one really good competitive build, armies are not particularly diverse to start with. Again, consider King Leonidas and his Thebains. Their score is crazy high, but no pushover.

Personally, I would rather have a 'Bonus points' scale for composition, so that players can choose to go cheesefesty, but good genrals could go more fluffy and the composition bonus would mitigate the cheese.

[uruk-hai scout]

Personally, I would rather have a 'Bonus points' scale for composition, so that players can choose to go cheesefesty, but good genrals could go more fluffy and the composition bonus would mitigate the cheese.

That was the system we used to have for the LoTR GT. Heck, you could take Aragorn and Elendil together if you wanted to, but you'd receive 0 points for theming (and the points for theming were worth the same as a Major Win). Now they've changed that: so long as you use the Legions of Middle Earth lists, you don't get penalised.

Going back to the original question, a configuration I've seen round here is the standard Alter, but replacing his magic equipment is a Blight of Terrors. Very fragile, but an excellent terror bomb.

[Ancelion]

Most WE armies I see (usually on local tournaments) look the same high efficient way: units of 8 dryads, wardancers, Wild Riders, alter nobles, dispel caddies... unusal combos seldom occur (though I make them myself ).

For me it was quite shocking to see how many german Woodie players use two treemen/ancients + BSB as the core of their troops. Though they get high rankings with this power gaming, the Wood Elves have a bad reputation here thanks to this.

[unicorn]

Here around it is usual to hide your characters inside of large units to protect them (or minimally put them at some strong mount); it is nearly impossible to see any wizard or hero to act just by himself - ppl are too much scared of shooting/casting which can take down their precious hero quickly.
As a result, Alters aren't popular here, and you will see them played extremly rarely because of this fear. Their role as mage hunter is weaker too, because players here usually refuse challenges with everyone (champions included).

Many WE players here also use larger units that this site posters - like WR in 8, WD in 9, GG in 12, sometimes 20. They usually take just 1 mage with scrolls, WE magic is considered nearly usseless here and "waste of points". In large battles (like 2k+) you can see many treekin units.

Ah, and treemans are not too much popular too

[Gropah]

@Unicorn:
Where is here?

[unicorn]

@Unicorn:
Where is here?

Ah, sorry

Czech republic, mainly south Moravia

[Mist Walker]

WE magic is considered nearly usseless here and "waste of points".

Woody magic is great, today against beastmen their beastherd didn't quite manage to get out of the forest-2 treesingings later and that unit has panicked and is below 25%

I'm now thinking of using the -1 to hit spear in my eternal guard unit

[Ancelion]

Woody magic is great, today against beastmen their beastherd didn't quite manage to get out of the forest-2 treesingings later and that unit has panicked and is below 25%

That's a special case isn't it? As our arch-enemy beastmen always suffer great damage from the forest itself... But normally your're fully right, in most cases Asrai magic offers us great assistance.

I'm now thinking of using the -1 to hit spear in my eternal guard unit

How in detail?

[Mist Walker]

Well not specifically in the unit.

unit with bsb+assisting alter with the dawnspear-charge into same unit and recieve extra protection as unless they've got a magic item they're always hitting on 4s if they're very elite or 5s in all other cases

[Phoenix Blaze]

Something I've noticed here is that not many people take full command for their units.

With my Beasts/Hordes of chaos army, I always took full command as every unit should be in the thick of the fighting and I want them staying there as long as possible.
But here (or maybe it's just with woodelves in general), rarely is a full command taken for a unit. The obvious are Glade Riders and Glade Guard.
In my 1000 point army, I only take a unit of 5 glade riders and 10 Glade guard and I only give them musicians as to give them a better chance of rallying if they are forced to flee.
That's a far cry from the first army list I made which had 2 units of 16 Glade Guard with full command and a unit of 8 Glade Riders, also with full command.


With an army like WE, where things cost a lot and it's a very elite force, I think it's an all round better choice to take an extra guy than an extra attack as is seen with dryads- buy another dryad, not a unit champion.
Again, this is something I've only seen with woodelves. With my past 2 armies, Skaven and Chaos, it was full command all round. Also, it's looks cooler


EDIT: something I forgot to mention. As I'm still building my army I've yet to take it to the field, but it's something I'm dreading as my chaos army was what I used for the last 5 years or so (or from whenever beasts of chaos was released) so my tactics revolve around charging in units which, for the most part, can work on their own (although don't underestimate a charge from a wargor on bear's anger and a chariot, not much is left afterwards).

It'll be a fair few games before I'm confident with my woodies.

[Gropah]

The absence of FC in WE units is partly because champions that give +1 BS are just not worth it. From a pure mathematical sense, he's never well invested points. And he'll do squat in CC.
Fighty champions are sometimes worth it mathematically, and even if they are not they give other benefits - like challenging. The thing is that some of our fighty units are actually worse off with champions, unless they are protecting a character. So.. not much of an incentive.

Sadly, I think FC's are generally overpriced and/or give too small a reward. And I think that's one of GW's greatest mistakes in WHFB.