How Many Dryads do you Need?

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thesustainablecenter
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How Many Dryads do you Need?

Post by thesustainablecenter »

So to follow up on my previous post on how many glade guard to take I'm wondering how many dryads to take to protect the glade guard? If I'm taking 3-4 units of 10 glade guard with one slightly larger with flaming banner, how many dryads should I take? I'm thinking 2 units of 8-10 dryads but I'm not certain. Any opinion from those wiser than I on this?
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Re: How Many Dryads do you Need?

Post by kakwah »

My lists Generally have end up with 3 x 8 Dryads.
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Re: How Many Dryads do you Need?

Post by Billthesurly »

With a list of 2500 pts I usually take three units of 8. I have been known to use two units - one 16 and the other 8. 16 lasts longer in a wood when you are trying to hold a terrain feature and is better for high point or team games. As I only have a total of 26 Dryad figures I almost always field 24 of them with the last two custom figs being saved for use as Branchwraiths.
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Re: How Many Dryads do you Need?

Post by thesustainablecenter »

I'm surprised that's its nearly a 1:1 ratio of archer to dryads.
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Re: How Many Dryads do you Need?

Post by godswearhats »

I play 2 or 3 units of Dryads, at 8 models each, in virtually every list I make. They are really, really good. I also usually run 40-50 Glade Guard.
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Re: How Many Dryads do you Need?

Post by kakwah »

Yeah I dont think its 1:1 ideally.

I am about 24 Dryads (3 x 8)
and about 60 GG (1 x 20 + 4 x 10)
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Re: How Many Dryads do you Need?

Post by albertoalter »

Nope dryads for me. They can't do anything really well imho.
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Re: How Many Dryads do you Need?

Post by Mollesvinet »

I usually go with 2 unit of 8, i find that 3 units get in each others way. If i take a small/medium unit of wild riders, then i let it replace a unit of dryads. In that case the dryads will be deployed near my forest on one flank and my wild riders on the other flank.
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Re: How Many Dryads do you Need?

Post by kakwah »

Yeah I used to find they got in each others way, But i generally run at least one out on the flank now.

They rape most flanking units, fast cav, chariots, etc
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Re: How Many Dryads do you Need?

Post by thesustainablecenter »

That's a good point I would have never thought about using them on the flank. And they skirmish so there really maneuverable and hard to kill with bs based shooting to boot.
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Re: How Many Dryads do you Need?

Post by kakwah »

Yeah skirmish, itp and t4 makes them pretty resilient to light shooting.
Skirmish and m5 makes them pretty quick.
With i6 and 2 s4 attacks each they can strike before most things you find on flanks.
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Re: How Many Dryads do you Need?

Post by Mollesvinet »

I almost always run them on the flanks. The fact that they are immune to psychology makes them unfit for the center of the board for my style, as they can't flee charges and aren't scary enough to worry the main combat blocks of the enemy. Basically this means that they either give a free overrun/pursue or save enemy units from shooting if they are in the center.

Another use they have is screening glade guard. If the opponent also have a shooting heavy army, then deploy your dryads in a line in front of your glade guard. If you get the first turn you can just move them away and shoot, if your opponent gets the first turn then he can only shoot at your glade guard with a heavy cover penalty. This can easily decide the shooting contest for the rest of the game.
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Re: How Many Dryads do you Need?

Post by thesustainablecenter »

Very helpful info there and again would have never thought of screening my units with dryards in the deployment. Man thinking like a wood elf is hard <.<
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Re: How Many Dryads do you Need?

Post by kakwah »

Yeah..
Pretty much when your book is this bad you need to use every little thing you can if you want to have a chance of winning.
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Re: How Many Dryads do you Need?

Post by thesustainablecenter »

Trust me I play Bretonnia...I know :cry:
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Re: How Many Dryads do you Need?

Post by Drstrangelove »

I normally only take two x 8, and either run them both on one flank or one on each. But then again I normally go for fairly minimal core, so I think you can safely take more if you prefer.
I think it would have to be a very bizarre list that didn't have room for at least one unit of 8, however. For their points they are one of the better core choices in the game, if used in appropriate roles.
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Re: How Many Dryads do you Need?

Post by Phil Rossiter »

One unit of 8. Decent utility unit.

I pondered another but vs fast armoured enemies you don't want too many IMHO. Always seem to need the points more elsewhere. Actually considering dropping them for more archers just to see.
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Re: How Many Dryads do you Need?

Post by Mollesvinet »

I learnt most of my warhammer, including screening with dryads, from tmarichards and his battle reports. We should all write him to start again, it was very insightful.
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Re: How Many Dryads do you Need?

Post by Blackcat »

I run 1 dryad unit per three glade guard. Its not as a general rule but its just how I have been running them. They arent that good against ranked up units so I just use them to hunt chaff and hold up units for a turn. I just take them in units of 8. My real killers are eternal guard, tree kin and treeman.
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Re: How Many Dryads do you Need?

Post by Zefiris »

8/10/12/14/15-20 are all valid choices depending on your usage of the unit.

8 is the MSU, and the smallest size.
10-12 is good can absorb a few attacks, while still retain efficiency while have the addition of extra attacks. Which opens a few options which the unit of 8 does not have ie staying power, at the expense of having a little larger foot print
14 is the max attacks you can get out of the unit in 2x7 formation, this is a very large foot print
15-20 on the other hand is basically to tie up their main unit for a turn or two. Super Large foot print.

Of course, it all depends on what you want to do.

Do remember that Dryads are skirmishers so 1/2in(12.7mm), while Dryads are 20mm(.79in) bases.
So a 7 wide formation = a little over 8inches (actually a little wider than a horde formation when not in combat), a 10 wide formation = 314.3mm(12.4in)
So a large unit you can literally force your opponent to charge your dryads while your other units can flank them.
Last edited by Zefiris on 26 Feb 2014, 00:34, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: How Many Dryads do you Need?

Post by thesustainablecenter »

Zefiris wrote:8/10/12/14/15-20 are all valid choices depending on your usage of the unit.

8 is the MSU, and the smallest size.
10-12 is good can absorb a few attacks, while still retain efficiency while have the addition of extra attacks. Which opens a few options which the unit of 8 does not have ie staying power, at the expense of having a little larger foot print
14 is the max attacks you can get out of the unit in 2x7 formation, this is a very large foot print
15-20 on the other hand is basically to tie up their main unit for a turn or two. Super Large foot print.

Of course, it all depends on what you want to do.

Do remember that Dryads are skirmishers so 1/2 inch(12.7mm), while Dryads are 20mm bases. So a 7 wide formation = a little over 8inches (actually a little wider than a horde formation when not in combat)
So you can literally force your opponent to charge your dryads while your other units can flank them.

Personally I prefer a unit of 20 dryads over EG, but that is personal preference.
Thanks that's really helpful! I'm copy/pasting that into my MS Note file on Dryads.
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Re: How Many Dryads do you Need?

Post by Zefiris »

Updated my prior post with more info.

Yea, also a dryad formation of 20unit in 2x10 & 14 in 2x7, is only 52.5mm deep (think horse length), so you can easily have units right behind it so you can get ready to flank.
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Re: How Many Dryads do you Need?

Post by Drstrangelove »

If only supporting attacks were the number on your profile rather than max 1. Sigh.
If it was as per profile it would be fine; frenzied troops and those with additional HW would still only get one, and those things with two attacks base aren't really considered overpowered at present (chaos warriors, saurus, dryads, etc)
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Re: How Many Dryads do you Need?

Post by Zefiris »

i perfer not, then they can hide lords in second rank but tooled for.max str and attacks without a care for defense because the first rank can take the hits.

not something i want to see nor fight against if i was using a normal army,
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Re: How Many Dryads do you Need?

Post by Jamesaet3 »

One unit of ten or eight. I put a champion in with ten. A branchwraith is actually really good, especially with a champion.
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