Missing the old Glade Guard

[Piri Greenflight]

Has anyone else noticed that with the change to the glade guard the only footbased hand weapon unit is the eternal guard and to have them as a core unit instead of a special we have to have a high born as our general but every other race gets their hand weapon as core

[teak]

Drayds are a foot based unit and are core.

If you are talking about Elf units then most armies that will take eternal guard, are going to have a highborn as a general. Plus if an army does take a treeman lord, it will most likely be as a forest spirit themed list and hence will include few if any elves and have drayds for core foot troops.

We have good archers, scouts, fast cav and skirmishy HW units as core, then we can have even better Eternal Guard as core simply by taking the most common lord choice, i think it will work out fine and will simply had a bit of variety to the list.

[Arthion]

I wouldn't agree with the statement, most armies with eternal guard will have a highborn. A noble is more than enough too.
As for the glade guards. The old ones were hardly used. Only some "fanatics" used the only rank and file unit of the wood elves on a regular base . GW was almost constrained to change them.
Besides you can easily field them in a special slot. The other slots of your army don't have to been already taken. Of the other choices only wardancer are more useful. Treekin and Eternal Guard are almost the same in cost efficiency imo.

[Dark Watcher]

it makes sence to have the core troops of wood elves archers. They took away some of the cool bow rules but still kept the fact that WE ingeneral still contain the most archers out of all race...... im sure someone will dispute that ... i havent quite thought it through

[Thrask]

It takes more than just a having a highborn he has to be general so no Alter kindreds if you want you're eternal guard to be core.

[Cthclain]

I don't think it that big of a deal while we can not use unlimited numbers of ranked troops wood elves never were big on hand to hand combat; too many losses for a dying race. Shock troops like wardancers and dryads that aim to break on the charge are what we get and they do there job well.

[Arioch]

It takes more than just a having a highborn he has to be general so no Alter kindreds if you want you're eternal guard to be core.

There's no reason you can't have an Alter Kindred Noble in a Highborn-led army.

[Kalarn]

I don't think that have the EG as special choices is much of a problem. Ok we don't have a hth ranked core unit but look at what we do have. Fast cavalry with spears AND bows, T4 multiple attack skirmishers and the deadliest archers in the game (far superior than the asur equivalent and for the same points cost).
With so many skirmishers and fast cavalry options, i'd find it hard to find a reason to include a ranked unit, when i can just avoid the deadliest units until i can attack them from every side.

[Thrask]

When I said no alter kindreds I meant highborns unless you're 3k or higher of course, sorry about should have been more precise.

[Piri Greenflight]

well i'm gonna put the elves aside for the mo and build an entirely non elvish athel loren army

[commander smacknduckuliv]

if one is not mistaken, are not we [asrai] usually a guerilla warfare force, if, at not at all least, a skirmishing fast moving hit and run force (if we are not, then i have been doing something dreadfully wrong...lol). and to represent that, games workshop made eternal guard special, to represent the fact that they are not common in asrai armies? Also the fact that only some asrai players will use a rank and file unit in there games (i will...), makes it much less of a problem. out of interest, who here, if e'guard were core, would take them in a 1500point game or less? i would care to guess very few.

just my humble opinion

[Arthion]

I guess you could be wrong. Besides your avatar is a tiny bit too big.

Having one rank and file unit, and add to that able to be stubborn with a fighting character, is just too good to be missed in too many armies. You can't always pull the coordinated attack off, sometimes the good old anvil and hammer has to replace it.

[The Waywatcher]

The idea behind Warhammer battles is that the elves have been brought out of the saftey of the trees and have to fight hands on (well almost). For that reason Spearmen would be good.

But I personally won't miss the old spear men. I never used them anyway, I always just shot at the enemy and left the Dryads to do the fighting.

[Evilzealot]

Standard armies can keep their rank and file units - wood elves are meant to be different in this respect. Eternal guard fit in well, they provide a ranked unit with a real purpose for the wood elves. Standard rank and file units have no use to a guerilla force, and it's a good thing they are special as wood elves aren't numerous enough to suffer casualties on that large of a scale. (I know rank and file units usually suffer massive casualties from magic/shooting or getting run down).

[SpOOn]

i use to use the old spearmen... but no need any more..

[Arthion]

SNIP
Besides you can easily field them in a special slot. The other slots of your army don't have to been already taken. Of the other choices only wardancer are more useful. Treekin and Eternal Guard are almost the same in cost efficiency imo.

Well what can I say? I forgot to include the Wild Riders of course. They and the Wardancers are the top choice for special slots. After that Treekin and Eternal Guard. We may expect not to see too many Warhawks around.

That said, it makes it more likely that armies which rely heavily on Wardancers and or Wild Riders will have to take a Highborn General if Eternal Guard fits their plan too.
But the Highborn is still dispensable for an armylist with EG.