2400 Woodelf list with ETC restrictions

[thomas]

Im going to a tournament in Norway that uses the ETC rules. I decided to take Wood elf and for once go with a more standard list.
There are some choices that are not standard but hopefully they are as sound as I think

Glade Lord on steed 273 pts
-Giantblade, helm of hunt, potion of strength

Treeman Ancient life lvl3 345 pts
-strangleroot

Spellweaver on steed, metal lvl4 310pts
-Dispell scroll, Talisman of preservation

Glade Captain on steed, bsb 155pts
-Warrior Bane, Enchanted Shield, Hail of doom arrow

Waystalker 110pts
-Bow of loren

16 Glade guards, trueflight, mus 250pts
15 Glade guards, trueflight, mus 235pts
5 Glade riders, hagbane, standard 120pts
7 Wildriders, fcg, shield, warbanner, 261pts
4 Trekin 180pts
8 Waywatchers 160pts

Totalt 2399 pts og 3 Pool Choices (36 models with trueflight og hagbane arrows)

It took a long time finding out what lore I should use on my lvl4. Finally I decided on metal. Mostly because it helps me with High armoursaves.

Any comments are appriciated.

[Phil Rossiter]

As someone who runs a fighting bus, I've got a few ideas here.

Giant Blade is really going for it. I just don't think you need to add the Potion because S7 should always be enough. I'd consider spending 40pts on protection, the Lord is quite vulnerable. Armour of Fortune would give him a 5+ Ward and a 3+ AS, if you buy him a shield. Add Luckstone for a re-roll. It's still a bit thin but the best you can do with Giant Blade. The Ancient would benefit from a fourth magic level to improve chances of rolling Dwellers. Conversely, Strangleroots on a BS4 guy is probably not worth it.

The mage looks OK to me, although you might prefer MR3 to the Ward because she can hide in the second rank of the bus and the spell protection looks really useful. I think there are some threats (Disc riders, Peg Lord etc) that Metal/Life will struggle to deal with. High Magic would help a lot with Unforging and Protection Counters could be huge here I feel, there are a lot of points in that bus. Again, I feel the BSB needs to be tooled up more, that Giant Blade bus is heading straight for combat. Either 4+ Ward Armour and Great Weapon or Enchanted Shield, Dawnstone, Sword of Might.

I'd consider switching one unit of archers to Hagbane to deal with high Toughness. I've played the bus with both Wild Riders and Sisters and I think the latter are better. Much more resilient and not Frenzied. They don't kill as much but that's what the Giant Blade (and BSB) is for, Razor std if so. I've also played the 4 of Treekin and I don't rate it, I'd swap it out for Wild Riders. It can help to cannon-screen the Ancient and deal with light stuff but a decent combat unit runs straight over it. Warhawks are another alternative and they too can cannon-screen the Ancient.

Waywatchers almost essential, maybe stretch to 2x5 if you can. An eagle or two would help this list because it has units you need to set combats up for.

[thomas]

Thanks for your input. I made a few changes.

I used the Lord setup you described. It looks a little more protective and you are right I do not need that extra +3 strength. I also used the bsb setup with armour of destiny and asrai spear + shield. I really wanted to have hail of doom arrow with me, but I think that I will use the warhammer proverb 'Kill your babies'

Im quite happy with the mage, The wardsave was actually a missed error. I ran the mage alone in a previous version of this list. When he is going to be in a bus he is better suited with MR. The Treeman ancient is better of as lvl4 without strangleroot attack. I agree on that.

I changed one glade guard unit to hagbane. I to think that I need that against high T. I will keep my waywathers at 8 because they have never dissapointed me at that size before. At 2*5 I think they will run to fast.

I liked the idea with sister bus instead of wildriderbus. When I swapped I still kept the warbanner, the razor banner is mostly useless, because all the models except the lord has armourpiercing. Then I think that 45 points is to much to give a model with -4 armoursave another -1 armourpiercing.
I also changed the treekin with a wildriderunit.

Total Roster Cost: 2400
1 Glade Lord, 273 pts
. . 1 Giant Blade, 60 pts
. . 1 Armour of Fortune, 35 pts
. . 1 Luckstone, 5 pts
. . 1 Elven Steed, 20 pts
1 Treeman Ancient, lvl4, 360 pts
1 Spellweaver, 310 pts
. . 1 Dispel Scroll, 25 pts
. . 1 Obsidian Lodestone, 45 pts
. . 1 Elven Steed, 20 pts
1 Glade Captain, 169 pts
. . 1 Armour of Destiny, 50 pts
. . 1 Elven Steed, 10 pts
1 Waystalker, bow of loren 110 pts
16 Glade Guard, 250 pts
15 Glade Guard, 235 pts
5 Glade Riders, 120 pts
7 Sisters of the Thorn, 273 pts
5 Wild Riders, 140 pts)
8 Waywatchers, 160 pts

[Phil Rossiter]

You're welcome sir.

Only the BSB has Armour Piercing in combat. Sisters have it on shooting only, that -1 can help get Poison wounds through in combat. The Lord's job is to take on the best the enemy has, often in challenges. AP could make a big difference vs a character with a 1+ re-rollable save for example. 45 pts sounds like a lot but this is a unit close to 1000pts it needs to be as strong as you can make it. It may be that the BSB needs the 3+ AS if you're not taking High Magic. But it does reduce his killing power. Hail of Doom is tempting but it compromises either defence or offence too much I feel.

I also feel a Champion in the Sisters gives you more flexibility re challenges. Consider casting Shield of Thorns from the Sisters at times, purely to heal a wound on a character with Lifebloom.

[thomas]

I missed that.... damn, then I do need that -1AS.
I agree that HoDA is mostly for a defensive army. I changed the spear on bsb to greatweapon. He still retains his 3+ 4+ save but gets more killing power.
To shave of the 10 pts for armourpiercing banner I removed the shield on the wildriders. I had a champion in the sisters and Im keeping that. Othervise I cannot put my mage in second rank

[Coyle_Ravane]

While you will probably be casting shield of thorns mostly for the heal, don't underestimate the value of the extra hits in combat, so make sure you cast it on a unit likely to spend time in combat .

2d6 s3 hits isn't much, but that happens in both players turns, cast on the right unit, one casting could easily generate 6-8d6 hits, which is an average of 21-28 s3 hits, or 7-9 extra armour saves to make on a T4 enemy, or around 4 vs higher toughness.

The TMA is perfect for this, as he is well suited to grinding down a large infantry block while he casts his spells, and another 2d6 s3 automatic hits on top of d6 s5 thunderstomp can really help him grind down most races core infantry blocks, leaving the rest of your army free to deal with the real threats, while he ties up and grinds their tarpit.

[thomas]

@Coyle_Ravane:

Thanks for the input. I have mostly used shield of thorns for their damage capability not for their healing. In my opinion it can be quite powerful. I actually thought of using it on sisterbus, but as you say, it does more good on the TMA.

I made a few changes to the list but this is how it is now. I removed the waystalker in exchange for shields on the wildriders, and increasing them to 7 aswell as increasing waywatchers to 9.

Glade Lord on steed 273pts
-Giant blade
-Armour of fortune
-Luckstone
Treeman Ancient lvl4 360pts
Spellweaver lvl4 metal on steed 310pts
-Dispell scroll
-Obsidian Lodestone
BSB Glade Captain on steed 169pts
-Armour of destiny
-Great weapon
16 Glade Guards hagbane arrows, mus 250pts
15 Glade Guards trueflight arrows, mus 235pts
5 Glade Riders hagbane arrows, standard 120pts
7 Sisters of thorn, fcg, Razor banner 257pts
7 Wildriders 196pts
9 Waywatchers 180pts
Great eagle 50pts

I think this is a much better list that can compete. I have enough arrows to do damage. And I have the combat units with great movement.
As for the armies I know I could meet:
-Wood elf (5 incl me)
-Dwarfs (1)
-Dark elf (1)
-Deamons (1)
-Warriors of chaos (2)
-High elf (1)
-Tomb kings (1)
-Vampire (2)
-Lizardmen (3)
-Chaos dwarfs (1)
-Empire (2)
-Skaven (2)
-Unkown (4)

So as I see it I would most likely meet woodelf, lizardmen, woc atleast. But it all depends on how each player plays as it uses the swiss system.

[Phil Rossiter]

I guess I'm usually more concerned with tougher, better armoured targets, against which the S3 of Shield of Thorns isn't ideal. But vs Witch Elves say, it looks great.

Vs Wood Elves and Lizardmen the Trueflight should be excellent.

[NonnoSte]

Hi, nice army you have there.
I think that you could make good use from lore of Beast on your Weaver too.

Probably you're going to have trouble mostly vs shooty armies who can whittle your bus very fast. So Elves and Lizard could cause some pain and you'll have to outshot them.
I'd be tempted to go all Trueflught on GG for this exact purpose as Phil suggested.

[Phil Rossiter]

It's a tough call because you just don't know what you'll be facing. With no Withering I still think some Hagbane for stuff like Daemons.

Agree on the bus. It's reasonably resilient but if the enemy has time and space to focus fire on it, it will go down. Metal may be better for all-round use but if you're going that route I'd be tempted to run the mage on foot. In the bus doesn't give the same synergies as with High for example.

[Coyle_Ravane]

I'm not sure about putting the metalweaver on foot. Might be worth keeping him in the bus so he's always in range to cast glittering robe on them, 5+ scaly skin will help their durability nicely.

[Phil Rossiter]

The problem I see is that the characters are not that resilient and while it might be worth risking that with just two, I wouldn't put all my eggs in that basket, unless you have the extra protection of Counters. I take the point about spell range but Searing Doom for example is not ideal from the bus.

If a Metal guy is going in the bus I'd be tempted to swap Giant Blade for Ogre and get a 4+ Ward on the fighting lord.

[thomas]

Thanks for all the input.
During the night I found out that the TMA in this list is mostly canonfodder, and to expencive cannonfodder. He will use mostly the life magic to heal him self and such will not be "part of the army".
Therefore Im switching him to a lvl 4 mage. Which mage that should have the shadow or death I do not know yet. I also reduced glade guards to 1 unit. Then I could add another unit of glade riders bcause of the mobility. Im going to try waywatchers in two units. BSB goes in the glade guard unit to give them more stability.

Glade Lord on steed 273pts
-Giant blade
-Armour of fortune
-Luckstone
Spellweaver lvl4 shadow on steed 305pts
-Powerscroll
-Talisman of endurance
Spellweaver lvl4 death on steed 280pts
-Dispell scroll
-Obsidian Trinket
BSB Glade Captain on foot 159pts
-Armour of destiny
-Great weapon
21 Glade Guards hagbane arrows, mus, std, banner of eternal flame 345pts
7 Glade Riders trueflight arrows 154pts
7 Glade Riders arcane arrows 168pts
7 Sisters of thorn, fcg, lichebone pennant 227pts
7 Wildriders, fcg, gleaming pennant 231pts
5 Waywatchers 100pts
5 Waywatchers 100pts
Great eagle 50pts

[Phil Rossiter]

The Ancient improves some match-ups, others get worse. Sometimes he needs to hide until cannon are dealt with. I feel he helps a lot in attacking but I agree he's a debateable pick.

The bus looks too vulnerable now to me. The only killing power it has are those four attacks from the Lord and if it runs 5-wide, one of the mages has to go in the front rank. At the very least it needs Gleaming Pennant but BSB would be better. It is so many points and the archers aren't.

[thomas]

Okay. There has been some changes. But this list is more potent as I see it.
Tried it two times now and it seems to do the trick.

Glade Lord on steed 273pts
-Giant blade
-Armour of fortune
-Luckstone
Spellweaver lvl4 death on steed 275pts
-Powerscroll
Spellweaver lvl4 High on steed 265pts
-Dispell scroll
BSB Glade Captain 157pts
-Armour of destiny
-arcane bodkins
16 Glade Guards hagbane arrows, mus, std eternal flame 270pts
7 Glade Riders trueflight arrows, std 164pts
7 Glade Riders arcane arrows 168pts
7 Sisters of thorn, fcg 227pts
-Licheone pennant banner
7 Wildriders, fcg, shield, gleaming pennant 231pts
8 Wardancers 120pts
5 Waywatchers 100pts
5 Waywatchers 100pts
Great eagle 50pts

Total 2400 pts og 5 PC.

I will now run mages in the sister buss and lord in wildriderbus.
both units will run pretty close to improve the success. I think that in those cases that I get +1 to start I will vanguard both sisters and wildriders (unless something is threatning them right away) That way I can position my wildriders on turn 1 (if I get it) without thinking about frenzy.
Wardancers are both redirectors and character wounders(perhaps even killers). Suicide charge into bsb/mage/general and then hopefully killingblow them. should be 6 attacks against the character. It is a longshot but Its a nice little trick if it works. Glade trueflight riders will go after warmachines (if they are left). Glade arcane riders will go after high armour if present, otherwise against warmachines and small units that are left.
Glade guards are going to stay in my forrest (venom forrest) They are going to target high toughness and anything that comes towards them. Within the forrest they do get the poison attacks that will help a little in CC.
Waywatchers will target anything that has good or decent armoursave. They will die but hopefully get atleast two rounds of shooting.
Greateagle is unnecessary to explain It is to be used as usual.
I must not forget about the spells to the sisters. They are nice to have, but usually both death and high will give me spells that will be used first.

The armies that I fear the most are high movement armies and shooting armies. High toughness I can deal with, but i will mostly be a draw match I think.

[nXken]

Warmachine hunting: hagbanes.
Glade guard: also hagbanes or trueflight...
Rest is pretty darn solid i think

[thomas]

Damn it. I forgot about the faq that says spiritleach can be used with generals inspiring presence. That is one more Pool choice. That makes it 6 PC when I can only have 5.
1 PC wizard generating lore of death
2 PC mounted wizard with lore of death with 6 or more sisters in the army
1 PC character with LD 10 to use with spirit leech
1 PC any part of 10 waywatchers
1 PC part of 15 arrows after the first 15 with trueflight or hagbane

So I needed to modify my list. I reduced sisters to 5 and made some minor changes. Unfortunatly that makes the sister unit more vulnerable so I have to take more care.


Glade Lord on steed 273pts
-Giant blade
-Armour of fortune
-Luckstone
Spellweaver lvl4 death on steed 275pts
-Powerscroll
Spellweaver lvl4 High on steed 265pts
-Dispell scroll
BSB Glade Captain 161pts
-Armour of destiny
-arcane bodkins
-great weapon
16 Glade Guards hagbane arrows, mus, std eternal flame 270pts
7 Glade Riders trueflight arrows, std 164pts
7 Glade Riders arcane arrows 168pts
5 Sisters of thorn, fcg 160pts
-Licheone pennant banner
7 Wildriders, fcg, shield, gleaming pennant 231pts
5 Wardancers 75pts
5 Wardancers 75pts
5 Waywatchers 100pts
5 Waywatchers 100pts
Great eagle 50pts

Total 2397 pts og 5 PC.

[NonnoSte]

Why the BoEF on Glade Guards?
It doesn't stack with magic arrows. If you want some flaming shots, take Starfire on your Glade Riders.

I still think that 3PC just to run Death is really costly. Have you considered some alternative?

[Aezeal]

If shadow is cheaper I'd just go shadows.

[christiansentho]

Wrong nicknamr. Thomas here. Tapatalk app is horrible there
I actually forgot the no stacking. It was there primarily to get above core minimum.
I agree that death is expensive here. Only thing is that i cannot find an equall PC points wise. I simply dont have the army points to do it.
But as of now im toying with the idea of a bsb on eagle to keep him more mobile

[thomas]

So day 1 of the tournament is over. The list I ended up using was this:

Glade Lord on steed 273pts
-Giant blade
-Armour of fortune
-Luckstone
Spellweaver lvl4 death on steed 275pts
-Powerscroll
Spellweaver lvl4 High on steed 300pts
-Dispell scroll
-Obsidian Amulet
BSB Glade Captain on eagle 194pts
-Enhanted shield
-arcane bodkins
-great weapon
16 Eternal guard fcg, Banner of eternal flame, 232 pts
16 Glade Guards hagbane arrows, mus, std, standard of dicipline 275pts
7 Glade Riders trueflight arrows, std 164pts
5 Sisters of thorn, fcg 160pts
7 Wildriders, standard, sield, gleaming pennant 211pts
5 Wardancers 75pts
5 Waywatchers 100pts
5 Waywatchers 100pts
Great eagle 50pts

Total 2399 pts og 4 PC.

Match 1 Dark Elves:
This is one of my friends regular players. He has a powerful army that is the following:

General: Dreadlord, steed. Black amulet(4+ward, saves rebound wounds no armor save), charmed shield, the other trickster's shard.
266p Supreeme Sorceress lv. 3 Metal Dispell scroll 210p
BSB: Dark pegasus Master Cloak, lance, RxB 218p
Death hag, Cauldron of Blood cry of war(fear test -3 ld) 290p
25 Witch elves, banner, mus, razor banner 340p
10 Corsairs 90p
5 Dark riders, shields 85p
5 Dark riders, shields 85p
8 Cold one knights, fcg banner of swiftness 285p
4 Reaper bolt throwers 280p
5 Doomfire warlocks 125p
5 Doomfire warlocks 125p
2399p 5/5

battleline
I deploy totally wrong. That results in my eternal guard, wardanvers getting charged by Witchelves with cauldron. it removes the two units and charges into my glade guards and kills them too.
I kill his bsb and some small chaff. It ends up with 4-16 to him. (bp is capped at 16-4). My wrong doing and his gain. He has now won all three matches 16-4 and is now leading the tournament.

Battle 2: meeting engagement
This is agains an O&G army. It has a large (10 deep I think) night goblin unit. A biguns unit (i think it is about 20 models excluding bsb and general), 1 wolf rider unit, 2 rock lobber, 3 doom divers, 2 spear chukkas, small nightgobin bowmen (15 i think), 1 unit of squig heards (8 nightgoblin and 12-13 squigs I think not too sure) and two mangler squigs.
Again I deploy wrong. Forget to cast LD spell on mangler to get those Away. I manage to kill squig heard, both mangler squigs, and some warmachines. Lost 5-15.
Main thing here is that I cannot win against 7 warmachines with this army. Best I could hope for was not to loose all.

Battle 3: King of the hill (modified watchtower, now tower)
I Meet lizardmen. Best Army I could meet. He had Slann, Cold one hero, skink priest, tower guards, 2 saurus units, 3 skink units, I ripodoctyl hero and one Ancient stegadon.
Stegadon is lost in round 2. I get off fiery convocation twice and purple sun twice. Last purple is on my turn 6, IR it and got 11 on miscast. Best miscast ever.
I then kill the slann, all towerguards and everything except 1 unit of skinks and 1 unit of saurus warriors. He kills only 2 units of waywatchers and 1 eagle.
16-4 to me. 1927 vs 250 vp. I wasnt on the center so I didnt get the objective, but neither did he.
It was a perfect match where everything worked and minimal luck.

Looking forward to tomorrow. Hopefully I will end up somehwere on the top part of the tournament

[Aezeal]

If O&G can field something like that I think the comp rules are not very good. If we get a limit on regular shots there should not be 7 warmachines on the other side.
Personally I think you have way to much points in characters.. I see 1000 points with only like 12 wounds.

[christiansentho]

It uses etc latest draft.
I too think i have to much characters. The lord is to vulnerable ad suspected. Sisters og thorn and Mages survived all except first match today. Bsb too. I will modify (create a new list) that is a msu arrow style list.

[thomas]

SO day 2 finished.

Battle 4: Blood and glory.
Dark elf shooty list. 2 * crossbowmen, 1* shades, 4 * RBT, 2* Warlocks, 2* dark riders with shooting.
I got massacred. This is what I expected. I went in to this tournament knowing that I couldnt beat Dark elves, certain empire/Deamon builds and massivly warmachines armies (more than 2).
His list was insanely hard. He got maximum points on the 4 battles he played. because of the cap it was 4-16 to him.

Battle 5: Battleline
Vampire counts and the only female player.
She had mortis engine, 2*zombies, 2* skeleton, 3* dire wolfs, 4-5 characters and some small unit I cannot remembr and a dragonfigure.
I got first round and knew that I would win. I didnt know by how much, but not by how much.
First round I killed 4 dire wolfs on separate units. Her turn 1 and the dice gods show her no mercy.
First she IR one spell. Then she rolls dimensional cascade. Wizard general bsb goes POFF. She then continue by crumbling 1/4 of her army.
And crumbles Mortis engine ( I had taken 2 wounds on it). The mortis engine then blasts 1/4 of the army. She had bad luck and killed half her army by herself.
On my turn 2 I charge wildriders through 1 unit and into one unit. shoot away the dragon.
On her turn 2 She gets off invokation and and raise dead. One new unit appears. Wildriders kills her unit.
On my turn 3 I charge her main unit with wildriders( including general) and bsb. Bsb kills her necromancer lvl3. Wildriders effectivly removes her main zombie unit.
Cannot remember every detail, but I won on my round 4. All is killed and she only killed my great eagle by magic.
Masscre, but it is capped to 16-4 to me.

I end my tournament on 27/35(I think) players. I get 45 BP in total with missions.

Lessons learned:

This army works. Only thing that needs to go is the glade lord. The LD10 spiritleach isnt that great. LD9 is good enough.
Mangler squigs HATES SPirit leach :P
Instead of the glade lord, get something that helps against warmachines and shooting. Perhaps 1 or 2 more GG units with hagbane.
16-4 cap is really good and fun
DEath and high in sister unit is a really good choice.
Glade riders are extremly useless in both this build and in a tournament list except when you go all fast cav avoidance list.

[Mollesvinet]

Thanks for writing your experiences from the event.

Death is powerful, but as you say, probably not worth it to add a glade lord "only" for the LD boost. What i like to do which follow a similar pattern though, is to have 2 level 1/2 following my dragon-lord around. This way you can have 2 spirit leech at LD10 to help remove characters that can beat the dragon.

Seems all of your games were massacres, to one side or another. Do you think that you could have avoided some massacres by playing more defensively once a battle started going wrong? Sometimes saving points can be better than trying to gain more when things are going down-hill.

Looking forward to see your future games!