returning player, new to wood elves. please help

[sunspear]

Hello all!
Im finally getting back into wfb. My long time friend has finally broken me. I thought i would give WE a whirl. I like the new models a lot. But i have some questions. I have been away for a while. It seems like many people use lv 4s for thier army generals and a lot of cavalry. I really like the new wwr and the eternal guard. Can an army be built around them? Is it viable. I am not a tournament player. I will b playing mostly friendly games. But i would like an army that doesnt get steamrolled every game also. Thats no fun either. Also how effective r the spears on the eternal guard? Thanks for any help it will b greatly appeciated.

[Polycotton]

I think the main reason Woodies run Level 4 mages as generals is because magic is more important to Wood Elves than previous editions. Before you could get away wit a Level 2 mage with a Skull Staff for defense and just buy troops. These days you really want good magic defense as magic is one of the great counters to wood elves (small fragile units and what not). You also need magic to really enhance our mostly average troops.

You can definitely run a viable list with a couple of big blocks of infantry in a Wood Elf list but don't look to just go head to head and hope to grind down your opponent. You will need some speedy flanking units to deliver the hammer blow to break most units. Wood Elves don't want to be in combat for more than one round if they can help it.

[sunspear]

thanks for the replyypolycotton . i havent bought any models yet and this helps out

[Coran GladeSwann]

Hello, sunspear

The low strength of EG can be taken care of through the power of our magic phase. Lore of Shadow is a popular choice for us for spells like Mindrazor which will make those str 3 elves turn into str 9 combat monsters! We can also debuff enemy toughness with Withering or Soulblight from Lore of Death so our low strength won't be as much of an issue. On the subject of Asrai Spears, armor piercing is a nice ability to have and even if you don't intend to use a strength buffing spell, you will at least be able to partially cut through armor.
As Polycotton stated, we elves need to use strong flanking units if we are to make infantry lists. Wild Riders are great to fill in that role, they are swift, hit hard and have a decent save.

[Cernunnos]

Also don't forget wardancers! ! They can strip ranks too!

[The Peacemaker]

Welcome.

In competitive play(tournaments) everyone takes a level 4 at least for magic defense. You just can't risk your big unit getting halfed by a spell when a couple more wizard levels would have prevented it.

The elves in general are designed to be more magic dependent. All the elf books have some sort of +1 to cast. wood and dark elves have the cavalry unit that casts spells. The high elves have a lord choice that gets all signature spells. Its just the way the elves are.

The wood elf book is fairly balanced so you don't have to worry if you've bought bad units or not. Dryads aren't the best but you can still make them work.
Some army books are so bad that you really do need to check the internet or you won't even be able to win friendly games. Empire army book comes to mind.

Spears on the eternal guard. Currently, wood elves are the only army with special spears. The spears in other armies kinda suck. But wood elf spears have armour piercing which makes them pretty good.

[Oregonwoodelf]

I think EG are the best core option, I have been running two units, one with 20 and the other 15. Allot of people are taking 2x15, they work well for holding a unit up for a turn or so you can get the counter charge on the flank,(EG can be a beast with some magic buffs)tree men are also good for holding things up. The jury is still out for the WWR, I think they are viable, just not sure how to effectively take/use them yet. Wild Riders are the poop and EG best friend for the flank charge(there are other option too). I don't think you can go wrong with starting to collect EG(20-30), I would wait to see how the best way to play WWR rangers is before buying them. Have fun!