2500 balanced - old vet returning to game

[Elbereth]

Lords [620]
Ancient (General) + lvl4 (Life) [360]
Spellweaver + lvl4 (Beasts), moonstone of the hidden ways [260]

Hero’s [340]
Spellsinger + lvl2 (Shadow), unicorn, ruby ring of ruin, dispel scroll [230]
Waystalker + Bow of loren [110]

Core [669]
3x 10 Hagbane glade guard [450]
19 Dryads + Champion [219]

Special [738]
7 Wardancers [105]
8 Sisters of the thorn + Champion, standard [208]
3 Warhawk riders [135]
10 Wild riders + Standard, shields [290]

Rare [130]
6 Waywatchers + Champion [130]

I’ve been a long time wood elves player, but recently retired for the last couple of years. Before my retirement i played regularly and even contributed to a couple of leaf articles here. Back in noob status, I’m thinking about making a return and have taken a look at the new rulebook and armies book. The fluff has changed somewhat over the years, but I like the new spin that’s been given to the army. Its nice to see that the army has remained true to the core of elite, maneuverable and glass cannon. Getting back into the swing of things, I'm thinking of getting a complete new army.

What I'm aiming for is an army which is fairly balanced between combat, shooting and magic. From what I can see, WE still have anvils and hammers, though in different forms of effectiveness. The support from shooting and magic should cause enough hurt to sufficiently diminish the enemy into manageable pieces and allow for the combat teams to take out the remainders.

For magic I am keen on proving buffing and debuffing spells to my units. Shadow and beasts come to mind, each of which provide a healthy variety of spells which can tip the balance of combat in my favour. Wyssan’s wildform makes any unit a monster, though the prime candidates are the dryads or wild riders. Savage beast of horros goes nicely on the ancient or waystalker, providing a potential 10 S7 hits on the latter or godlike stats on the former. The best combo I see is enfeebling foe and dwellers below, that’s complete troll vs large horde units. If I’m facing a heavy armour army, I’ll probably swap in lore of metal instead of beasts to provide support on waywatchers. Taking the ruby ring of ruin provides a nice opener to draw out a dispel dice a turn or alternatively a wound or two somewhere. I don’t know too much about the sister bus but it looks like a promising bait and bunker unit. Adding the unicorn provides a nice MR2 as well as some hitting power if the unit is ever used as a flank unit in combat.

For shooting, I need bulk fire as well as some armour negating fire, which entails hagbane glade guard, waywatchers, waystalker and sisters of thorn. There are a lot of poisoned attacks which I feel provides a good potential for killing larger units as well as monsters.

For my combat teams, I am looking at the ancient as the anchor for either the wardancers or dryads, depending on the opposition. Wardancers will work better against a horde, while dryads work better against more elite units where fear provides a nice bonus. The wild riders are a steam roll unit for enemy support. Warhawk riders are a nice chaff unit and have warmachine duty. The ancient provides 18” of ld10 and a brilliant anvil ability as well as some nasty life spells. I still have to work on a strategy for keeping him alive vs cannons etc. any tips in this department are welcome.

Overall I think the list is fairly balanced, though will need some real work in the fluff department in order to put icing on the cake.

What are your thoughts on the above list?

[nXken]

First of all, weclome back!

And for advice, please find my 2cents hereunder:
Split up the WR, lose their banners and add a champ and shields?
Thats 15ASF attacks, rerollable. + 5 from the steeds. Even if your Dice-Gods are against you, you'll still bonk a unit to smithereens

Maybe add a Wraith to your dryads, always fun to run her out of the unit to redirect.
At 85 points, the branchWraith really pulls her weight in ANY comp. Might i suggest taking her over a fourth lvl on your Ancient?

[Phil Rossiter]

It looks pretty functional though I feel you may need to tweak it a bit Elbereth.

The Ancient is great vs most things. Against cannon use buildings and walls. Screening with Warhawks is also good. The sixth wound means you can risk the odd ball because a single shot has to get quite lucky to take him out. Flaming cannon (Daemons, Dwarfs) are of course especially dangerous. So are spells like Shem's, Pit, Purple Sun, Searing Doom. You have a scroll though and getting into combat ASAP would help.

I would always take a BSB. Here, the Ancient's Ld10 is great but failing it costs 460 VP's. Both he and the Dryads will lose combat often, they need the re-roll. I'd put a 4+ Ward on the Unicorn because she won't get Look out Sir from the Sisters. Savage Beast won't give the Waystalker S7 shots because Bow of Loren is S3. Branchwraith is cheaper than 85pts and worth a look here I agree.

Metas differ but in general 8th edition went from Horde infantry to Monstrous stuff to shooty avoidance. If you do fight hordes, Enfeebling+Dwellers is deadly but a you have to get quite lucky to get both off vs a decent player. I'd try to get Banner of Eternal Flame in the list. An eagle or two might not go amiss for redirecting.

[Elbereth]

@ nXken: Interesting splitting up the wild riders. Will i still be able to negate ranks with a single rank of the unit? I was under the impression that you always needed an additional rank. I like the idea of the breakout branchwraith, was thinking of doing something similar with a shadowdancer for rank negation, but the branchwraith is a bit cheaper.

@PhilRossiter: Good catch on bow of loren. Somewhere in my head i was still used to the old version... Vs cavalry it will have to be 5 AP shots i guess, but that effectiveness seems a lot less guaranteed. I used to run with a treeman and bsb combo, which worked very well. So i might take you up on that. With dwellers i was counting on the high chance of IF due to a having to roll mutiple dice. Perhaps I'm overestimating the odds though...

Definitely food for thought!

[nXken]

You won't need the extra rank i think... Against the right unit you'll bonk off the ranks

I used 5 WR vs a unit of 30-ish clanrats. (with shields, full command, and a weaponteam)
Broke them on the charge (head on by the way, so not even a +1 for flank/rear).

By splitting them up you can make a sort of pincer, deleting the chaff 1 unit at a time (2 per turn if all keeps going well), until u get to his bunker/deathstar.
You could also use them in tandem... then i's really 1 per turn.
Or you can use them to rape his bunker from the start. But then your WR are gone as well...

Hell... u'll know what to do.
I got zero experience and it's this little click in your brain and that right feeling in your gut when you declare that charge.

[Aezeal]

I'd drop the ancient and go for a regular treeman and a regular mage. Just so the general cannot be that easily targetted and killed. 12 levels of magic is way to much to be able to use it all effectively.. you will have alot of magic levels doing nothing.. while you have payed for them.

You need 1 level 4 but another 4 magic levels besides that should be enough.

Consider scouts too, hagbane scouts can be good vs machines.

[Phil Rossiter]

It's true you need two full ranks to disrupt enemy rank bonus. But it doesn't necessarily break Steadfast, which is more important. For that you need more full ranks than the enemy, period. But as said, generally infantry blocks are not the problem these days. The Ancient should stop most of them cold, if needed.

Chance of IF on six dice is around 26%. Most players will dice the Enfeebling if they have a scroll in hand. You'd probably need to generate 9 PD to threaten this, odds are against it.

[Slobber]

Welcome back, you must be a Tolkien fan, or really must love nethack
I agree with nXken split up the Wild riders and drop the banner. They don't need the extra combat res. I like to run mine with shields in 2 units if six, to maximize my number of attacks.
If it were me I would run a lvl 4 on shadow rather than beasts, beasts will help in combat but mostly you're looking at wyssan's which you can always get, Pan's is covered and isn't as good as flesh to stone, and amber spear is similarly covered by hagbane arrows. Savage is okay for the treeman and gimmicky for the waystalker.
As far as the waystalker goes I really want to love these guys so much, but when push comes to shove they're just not that good at killing off characters. There are too many targets with T5 and a 4+ ward save to make them viable. The bow plus savage will make an elf sweat but I think the points are better spent on more waywatchers.
Just my .02, Welcome back and let us know how you like the new book!

[Phil Rossiter]

I agree the list might be better off swapping the lores.

Amber Spear though can trouble stuff Hagbane can't, Dragons, Steam Tanks, solo WoC characters etc.. I tend to see them as complementary. Shadow can Pit some stuff and Wither other things. The bottom line is that magic needs to help the arrows out sometimes.

[Elbereth]

Thanks for feedback, i have modified it as follows, which to my delight gives 2 anvil units.


Lords [620]
Ancient (General) + lvl3 (Life) [325]
Spellweaver + lvl4 (Shadow/Metal), Arabyan carpet, power stone [295]

Hero’s [409]
Spellsinger + lvl2 (Shadow), steed, ruby ring of ruin, dispel scroll [180]
Branchwraith [75]
Battle standard + asrai longbow, shield, great weapon, crown of command, dragonhelm [154]

Core [648]
3x 10 Hagbane glade guard [450]
18 Dryads + Champion [198]

Special [722]
7 Wardancers [105]
5 Sisters of the thorn + Champion [140]
3 Warhawk riders [135]
6 Wild riders + Champion, shields [186]
6 Wild riders + Champion, shields [186]

Rare [100]
5 Waywatchers [100]

[Phil Rossiter]

GW have recently FAQ'd the % you can spend on Lords and Heroes to be 50 each. So in most places you can go over the 625 if necessary. I would try to fit a 4+ Ward on the carpet guy. I'm not sure Crown of Command will be that useful as the BSB will die quickly in combat. Most players go for Hail of Doom. If you want him to fight on foot he needs max protection, pretty much.

I'd take musicians on the archers, Swift Reform can be important.