Wood elves as anyone who knows me should know are my favourite fantasy race and now they have a new book. (Yay!)
Wood elves in my mind are the quintessential fantasy race, you think of the fantasy genre and you think of wood elves from fantasy novels like the hobbit right through to computer games like skyrimm you always have wood elves they are the very essence of the fantasy genre.
Wood elves are not your good guys but neither are they your bad guys they sit in a place in-between the two. They are feral they are savage they are in actual fact awesome in every way.(not biased at all)
Lets look through the book then
Special rules-
•Blessings of the ancients is a pretty strong special rule to be completely honest getting +1 to cast all Lores in a wood! Combine that with the likes of the book of ashur from the brb and your looking at seriously strong magic phases.
•Forest spirits-ok this is a nerf to the previous incarnation, however it's a new book and the forest spirits have a more supporting role now rather than being about 50% of your army list they are probably about 10-20% now. We will start seeing more forest spirits in the long run as people start to realise you can't just win with shooting.
•Forest stalker- essentially you are a dark elf and a high elf when in a wood also you don't take dt tests when moving through a wood. This rule is decent if you utilise the woods on the tabletop (obviously).
Armoury
•Asrai longbow- this is just a regular longbow with ap
•asrai spear- again just a spear with ap
•Blackbriar javelin-an ap,poison javelin
Arrows
Now were talking lets go through the arrows available to wood elves.
•Arcane bodkins- give you -3 armour shots in your bows. Seems good at first until you look at the points cost and for me this makes them not really worth investing in.
•Hagbane-poison shots- these are excellent. Anyone who has played with or against it knows how good poison is as a rule.
• moonfire- not much to say here not really much point in these arrows ATM
• starfire- better than moonfire due to most regen stuff being in forces of destruction. Not a bad choice at all
• swiftshiver- for some unknown reason these are being overlooked by everyone. They give you double shots so lets see a unit of 25 glade guard get 50 shots boost that with either harmonic convergence or hand of glory or even enchanted blades and I'm sure you can see the potential for these arrows Particularly against hoards.
•true flight- no minus to hit- yeah these are ace particularly against other elves, chaff and skirmishers or even stuff trying to hide to get cover.
Note that all the arrows (apart from arcane bodkins) retain ap
Magic heirlooms
•spirit sword- I wouldn't recommend this item
•Daiths reaper-again look what magic weapons you get in the brb for 50pts. Not worth it
•bow of Loren- this is ace.multi shots(a+1). Take it and put it on your way stalker.
•Helm of the hunt-this is a decent item for the points actually. Could see this on an eagle noble
•acorn- Darn this is good.D3 woods placed anywhere(they do scatter) and you choose what the woods are. Combine this with wardancers diving into the woods and being stubborn and truflight arrows on glade guard to shoot through them and really ruin people's hobby.
•moonstone- this is another ace item, teleporting round the table into different woods constantly avoiding combat.
•hail of doom- this is an auto include
•Calaingors stave- erm, no
•banner of the eternal queen- seriously the worst banner in the game
•banner of hunter king-anything in the wood elf army that you want to vanguard already has the rule.
You will notice I have skipped over the magic lore choice this is because the magic lore you choose should reflect your arrow choice.
Example -true flight combos with lore of shadow really well.
The nitty gritty (units)
Lords
•Glade lord- I'm not sure why you would take this fella ATM. He Dosent seem to have a purpose. You could take him and mount him on a dragon of course and dragons as we all know are ace.
What he's good at- not much
What he's bad at-being cheap
•spell weaver-yes take at least one and make her a lv4 leave her unmounted or stick her on a horse. I'll leave the magic choice up to you
What she's good at- casting&dispelling
What she's bad at- surviving
•treeman ancient- when you compare him to a regular level 4 who is cheaper and oddly easier to keep alive he seems to be a non choice
What he's good at- sucking up points
What he's bad at-being cheap,dodging cannon balls
Heroes
• glade captain- good choice all round you will probably have at least one who will be your bsb and have the hail of doom . I still think there is value in taking an eagle mounted captain.not a bad option to give this fella the starfire shots.
What he's good at-being your bsb
What he's bad at- not much
•spell singer- yep there is still a good reason to take one of these if you need a support lore for your main lore. A scroll is probably the only magic item you would give her
What she's good at-being a support caster
What she's bad at-surviving
• shadow dancer- I'm not sure what happened here there seems to be a bit of a mess with this character. Prohibitively expensive for what she gives you.
What she's good at- not much
What she's bad at-almost everything
•Way stalker-these guys are ace. Now you can either spam them or take at least one with the bow of Loren. They can snipe other characters with their no armour save shots.Interestingly though when I've been writing lists and play testing they are usually the first thing I drop
What he's good at-sniping characters
What he's bad at-not being dropped from your list.
•branch wraith-seems to be another near miss. I'm not sure what her purpose is. Should point out that she can join non forest spirit units. Someone might get some use out of that.
What she's good at- being tough
What she's bad at-having a role
Core
•Glade guard-glade guard are good arguably worse than before but they are still a great choice. The arrow choices are interesting. The 'optimal' choices are poison and true flight however I am a fan of swiftshiver shards. Now you should pick arrows that support the magic lore you have chosen(just to re iterate)
What they are good at- shooting
What they are bad at-surviving
•dryads-these seem to have lost out in the new book. They lost strength and they lost skirmish and a pip of ward save however they are good for takling things like zombies,skeletons,goblins and skaven slaves.
What they are good at-being tough,killing t3 stuff
What they are bad at-killing anything else
• glade riders- not sure what to make of these. Due to ambush they aren't great at doing what fast cav normally does though they are decent for killing warmachines and they are pretty darn fast.
What they are good at-being quick
What they are bad at- turning up when you need them
•eternal guard- stubborn core that's right stubborn core. Haven't seen many people use these yet and I don't know why. You can (if you wish) do some dodgy ranking up in ranks of three with the command group at the front and hold up people forever. Did I mention they are stubborn core.also remember other people aren't steadfast when in a wood. Also they are STUBBORN CORE!
What they are good at- being an anvil
What they are bad at-surviving
Special
•wildwood rangers-I like these.at first I thought they were rubbish but when you look at them they are itp and get an additional attack against fear/terror causers and are s5 due to having great weapons I mean these will destroy ogres and the Iike. It should be noted that there is a wood that makes units cause fear so if you get your rangers in there they should kill alot of stuff.They add a decent amount of punch to the army. Not to mention the models are awesome.it should be pointed out though that they do only have a 6+ save.
What they are good at-killing fear causers
What they are bad at-surviving
•wardancers- have some funky new dances.an ap,killing blow dance a +1attack dance a 3+ ward dance and one that strips rank bonus. These ladies are good for diving in woods and being stubborn to hold things up particularly if you choose the 3+ ward dance you might only hold a unit there for 1 turn but that can be enough to win you games you can also put them in front of an enemy cav or foot unit with a character in there and your opponent has a tough choice of sitting there or risking charging and getting killing blowed.
What they are good at-killing characters(on foot or cav),diving in woods and being stubborn.
What they are bad at-surviving
•treekin- they are worse than before but much cheaper. They have a good toughness of 5 and dish out a fair amount of attacks they also have a decent armour save.unfortunately I'm not really sure they won't just flee when they lose combats.
What they are good at-being tough,dealing with hoards
What they are bad at-not running from combat
•scouts- scouts are ace I expect to start seeing a lot of these bad boys. Stick poison arrows on them and take out warmachines and the like. They can even take a command group which is interesting. Another unit that putting the starfire shots on is a good choice.
What they are good at-being annoying, killing warmachines.
What they are bad at-you guessed it, surviving
•warhawks- these are amazing they really are. They are good for bait and flee they are good for warmachine hunting and they are good at going after mages in bunkers also they are tough 4 skirmishers with 3 wounds each and killing blow on the charge!
What they are good at- almost everything
What they are bad at-killing hoards(that's not there role though)
•sisters- similar to the warlocks from dark elves just not as good. They get curse from the lore of beasts (one of the best spells in the game) and shield of thorns which you will only cast to put a wound back on your Mage if she is bunkered here. They are quick and you should never overlook their javelins those can nick wounds off things. They can take a banner also-the mr1 banner is a good choice for them.a bunker of 8 or 9 is good or take 2 units of 5 as re directors.
What they are good at-bait and flee,being a bunker
What they are bad at- not much
•wild riders- boy these dish out the punishment 3 attacks each (on charge) that are s5 and ap also the horses get 2a each it's hard to see past these. 2 units of 6 or 7 is a good choice or 3 units of 5 as a throwaway. People have to deal with them.Now the shields is an interesting thing personally I am of the opinion that they are worth the investment myself.
What they are good at-dishing out the pain,being annoying
What they are bad at- getting frenzy baited.
Rare
• waywatchers- now just to point out waywatcher are the coolest dudes/dudettes in warhammer. Ruleswise they are great also. No armour shouts from there bows or you can instead shoot twice making them a great utility unit. I can't really see why you wouldn't include two units of these.
What they are good at-being awesome
What they are bad at- dodging magic missiles
• eagles- these fly and they are 50 points a pop cheap enough to throw under the bus and save more expensive stuff from getting charged. They are also decent at warmachine hunting and I have even used them to kill low level mages in the corner of units.
What they are good at- being cheap, sacrificing
What they are bad at- not much
•treeman- he took a nerf there's no doubt however I am still of the opinion that he is a good choice for the army he's good for distracting people and can hold things up for a long time being t6 with a 3+ save and has stubborn 9 (have I mentioned how good stubborn is yet?). I wouldn't bother with the strangle roots personally. The treewhack is interesting its worth going for on low init stuff with lots of wounds (stank springs to mind)
What he's good at-being an anvil,killing monsters
What he's bad at-dodging cannonballs(especially flaming ones)
So that pretty much ends the review.
Please feel free to leave comments on anything I've missed or anything you disagree with (its always good to have a healthy debate)
Also feel free to follow me on twitter @gary_wyper
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