1,000 points for Breakpoint

[godswearhats]

First event with the new game is tomorrow. 3 games at 1k, mostly to learn rules. Here’s my list. I’ll tell you how it goes!

Treeman Ancient: Battle Magic 290

Glade Captain: great weapon; shield; trueflight arrows; Warhawk 109

5 Glade Guard: trueflight arrows; Vanguard 65

5 Glade Guard: trueflight arrows 60

5 Dryads 65

5 Dryads 65

5 Wardancers: Bladesinger; 5 × additional hand weapon 91

6 Wild Riders: Wild Hunter; standard bearer; musician; shields 195

Great Eagle 60

1,000 points

[MortenLarsen]

Nice list. You can really fit in alot even at 1k because of the small min units sizes. Looking forward to hear about the Ancient at 1k.
Good luck

[Prince Faolan]

Quick piece of advice since you're running a battle magic tree boi

Assailment spells can be cast in your enemies turn, not just your own, which makes battle magic absolutely stonks

[MortenLarsen]

Quick piece of advice since you're running a battle magic tree boi

Assailment spells can be cast in your enemies turn, not just your own, which makes battle magic absolutely stonks

You can cast Assailment spells as the "passive" player? crazy!

[Prince Faolan]

Quick piece of advice since you're running a battle magic tree boi

Assailment spells can be cast in your enemies turn, not just your own, which makes battle magic absolutely stonks

You can cast Assailment spells as the "passive" player? crazy!

Page 108 of the core rules, every other type says
"can be cast during your (relevant) phase" while assailant says
"During ANY combat phase"

Nice sleeper thing I don't think many have realised yet.

[Thalandor_gaming]

There are very few Wood Elves battle reports or army reviews on Youtube.

I'm looking forward to your assessment of your first tournament and especially the Treeman Ancient.

[godswearhats]

Sadly 1,000 points is not a great points size for tactics. Good for learning the rules though.

First off: Treeman Ancient is the toughest thing to kill. Survived all 3 games, despite being repeatedly charged by Bretonnian knights of every shape and size. However, being only a Level 2 wizard kinda sucks - in larger games, would definitely take L4. I couldn't dispel some remains-in-play spells that ruined my day in Game 2. Assailment spells in close combat are great - I stopped taking Tree Singing and went for Hammerhand Game 3. Tree Singing is kinda useless because your opponent will dispel the Forest on their turn before they have to make any moves or declare any charges.

Terror and Fear didn't come into the games much, mostly because I didn't have better Unit Strength than the units I was fighting. I think a Fear test was failed once over three games. I think for Dryads to work effectively they would need to be in larger units than 5.

Not having a BSB was rough. Archers definitely want to have a BSB in order to be able to flee when charged. I rolled 11s multiple times when trying to rally fleeing archer units, which worked against me in the game I lost.

I think there might be a tactic involving Fire & Flee / Trueflight on one wide rank of GG. Have them flee through a unit of Dryads and then rally behind and be able to draw line of sight through the Skirmishers. The charge might fail and then the Dryads could potentially move back to make it happen again. Might be a bit cheesy

Wild Riders are where it's at. Frankly, take as many as you can. They were hands down the best performers on the battlefield, but they still want to be supported with multi-charges where possible - they can blend but you want to keep them frenzied, so they have to win every combat. Luckily, I never lost a combat with them, but sadly they did get wiped out once by a unit of Grail Knights and my lack of ability to dispel (they had 5+ regen in addition to 5+ ward and 5+ armour (after AP) (see his discussion of the game here).

Trueflight arrows are great. Walk around, shoot on 3+s, plink off a couple of models, cause a panic test. Little units of archers did what they do best. My opponents were more afraid of Arcane Bodkins, they told me afterwards, because ...

AP -3 is a big deal. It's as important to this edition as S6 was to 8th ed. It makes a huge difference to the combat math, turning those 3+ saves into 6+. Versus AP -2 (which is pretty common - GW, Lances, etc.), which turns a 3+ save into a 5+. That extra -1 will half the number of saves your opponent makes.

Vanguard move is just a normal move now, which means only 5" for our infantry. I think I'm more likely to take more Scouts in the future, as part of the Core allowance.

Hope this helps, I might get around to writing battle reports, but frankly I think 1,000 points isn't very representative of the game at large and so not sure there's much point.

~gwh

[MortenLarsen]

Great report! Thansk

[Beithir Seun]

Not surprised the Ancient was a beast, although it sounds like it's definitely worth "going big or going home" when it comes to magic levels. If you're going to take an Ancient at 1k, go the whole hog and give him extra levels

I suspect unit sizes will still work best as they were in 8th Edition, especially with Dryads. Just because we can take units of 5 doesn't mean it's any good. How did the Glade Guard fare in smaller units? My biggest concern would be them not having any impact in such small units...

Surprised you felt the lack of a BSB so keenly, but sounds like you had a couple of very unlucky rolls. I'd probably consider musicians for the GG before adding a BSB though.

Definitely sounds like Bodkins are worth experimenting with, especially as saves in general have got worse. Heavy cavalry isn't quite so scary when most of them are stuck at 3+ saves (instead of 2+) with the prospect of AP -3...