2500 pts and 5 Trees

[NonnoSte]

Of course they're not!
But then I couldn't play with 5 Trees.

5 Treemen is as much as they can be fielded and I wanted to go as heavy on them as possible.
Don't forget they still provide T-Stomps at Str5 and the synergy between Undeath and Life is really awesome.

The only reason I play this list is pure fluff and I just look for funny games with it.
The more it performs, the better it is for me, but I don't expect it to be "competitive" or "optimized".
To be honest I hadn't even expected it to be effective.
I'm glad I was wrong.

[Q10fanatic]

Have you gone against Searing Doom? I played a 1500 point match and brought 3 trees. My opponent was Lizzies and his Slaan had Searing Doom. We called it after 3 turns and 2 one-shot dead Treemen. That was the only thing he needed to slaughter me.

[NonnoSte]

Noto yet, actually.
Bit here the scroll will come in play for real and I'll try to hit combat as soon as possible.

I reckon it would be a problem (especially from a L4 caster). Even more if played in an MSU army which can easily surround and outmanouver me.

[Aezeal]

Have you gone against Searing Doom? I played a 1500 point match and brought 3 trees. My opponent was Lizzies and his Slaan had Searing Doom. We called it after 3 turns and 2 one-shot dead Treemen. That was the only thing he needed to slaughter me.

Yeah as a woodelf player - who, I hope - regularly removes monsters and other models which have a high points/wound profile - we know monsters are vulnerable. Imagine playing the treelist against another WE army... with 30 hagbane GG and 15 HB scouts. Though I must admit that treemen have a higher armor save than most monsters except dragons.

NonnoSte: I'm wondering: do you get much benefit from the terror on the treemen?

[NonnoSte]

NonnoSte: I'm wondering: do you get much benefit from the terror on the treemen?

Actually, I haven't got benefits at all from terror, since it's very rare I charge something myself.

Usually I receive a charge then I countercharge with another Tree. Fear test in combat has actually done something, tough.

[NonnoSte]

Here the final draft of the list, which I played in the second chapter of the End of Time Campaign in our local gaming club:

Durthu.
Life Ancient L4.
Undeath Ancient L3.

Metalsinger L2, Dispel Scroll.

2 x 10 TFA Glade Guards, mus, std.
18 HBT Glade Guards, mus, std.
5 Wild Riders, shields, champ, std, BoEF.
2 x Treeman, Strangleroots

It's played @2400 pts, since I had a discount of 100 pts for taking Durthu or Orion (complete VP conceded).
Soon reports and thoughts on the Campaign.

[Coyle_Ravane]

Really cool to see someone having success with this.

My experience with 5 tree lists highlighted a couple of things:

As you said, life and undeath synergize really well. I loved summoning a block of zombies in front of my opponent's prize deathstar/super-unit-of-doom, blocking his carefully set up charge, then buffing them with +4T!

I also found one of the most important uses of summoning was getting big blocks of cheap zombies to charge into the flanks of my opponent's infantry, negating steadfast and matching his static CR, which allowed my tree to break units with absurd ease (even the ancients usually).

I also had durthru run undeath, for a second zombie summon, and I was really glad to have an undead playing friend who was happy to lend me his zombie hordes so long as I let him watch the games.

Finally, I have to agree, this type of list is all about the look on your opponents face, first when you plonk 5 treemen down on the table, and then again when you start trolling him with hordes of supertough zombies or extra modifier ignoring archers....

[NonnoSte]

Hey Coyle,

Then it was yours the list from which I stole the original idea?

I had a lot of fun with it and I reconsidered the Treemen entirely since I run the campaign.
I still don't think they're nearly powerful as they used to be in the last book, but I can't complain honestly.

Ironically the only "meh" part in all of this was exactly the Undeath Ancient.
The Life one's job was mainly to stay alive, being the general, and both Durthu and the two regular Treemen always proved worthy in combat.
With so many casters and spell selection, often I found out that the Undeath ones were the less appealing to me.
I think it's mainly because of my approach. For instance I always preferred to try Dwellers or Transmutation on Death Stars or Searing Doom on Cav Busses.
I also always tended to keep the Life Ancient and the Undeath one not that close to each other, forming "teams" of two with a regular Treeman each.

But yes, the Lore of Undeath can provide a lot of goodness, starting from cheap ranks, up to war machines, chariots, heavy cavalries and throw-away units (they're all expendable actually, but you got the point).
The biggest problem I faced with them is that they're utterly slow.
At M4 and no possibility to march, it tooks ages to move them anywhere.

One last thing, just for reference, could you post your original list?

[Coyle_Ravane]

Might have been, I was one of the first people to post a 5 tree 2400pts list, and I did discuss the use of undeath and life together.

I found having Durthru run undeath to be essential to that side of the list. Having that second casting of the undeath sig spell meant I could really be sure of getting some zombies out even if one casting got dispelled, and potentially get out a lot of zombies.

I also didn't bother using dwellers on deathstars or anything like that much, because I found it far more entertaining (and my opponents found it far more annoying) if I just bogged them down with T-buffed zombies. After all, I was basically using this list to troll my friends occasionally when they expected my usual combined arms elf list.

This was my original list, I think, but I discussed variations I tried in various other threads too.