Tactica-wood elves 8th ed

[Doommasters]

the problem there is it relies on you going with the hardest units in the book and getting your friends to bring soft lists with no fire to hurt your flammable monsters with. saying 'wood elves are okay if you spam treemen and get your opponent not to counter them with fire on purpose' isn't really reasonable. ;p

You don't have many other choices to compete, so either they don't tailor their lists or play another army if you want to have a good game. You can go the Dryads GG and lvl4 which can also work but I have had more success with the above. If you play an all comers list I doubt they will have more than 1-2 reliable ways to deal fire damage anyway.

[warhammer353]

Wood elves are kind of bad in 8th. The biggest problems is that they are so overpriced. but actually then you look at it, if the errata changed it so dryads warn't skirmishers, and the only size restriction was 10+. when the wood elves would be much better. Hordes of dryads with archers, tree kins and tree men supporting.

Anyway. I have made a kind of different list here.

[Chicago Slim]

Competitive builds of other armies in hands of an experienced player will crush Wood Elves, no matter your list or tactics.

I absolutely love this sort of hyperbole, which is awesome specifically because it cannot be disproven.

The fact that I'm 5-1 with my Wood Elves in a take-all-comers tourney clearly means that my opponents are inexperienced and/or bringing uncompetitive builds, right? I had this out in another thread earlier this week, when I wrote about how my most recent opponent (a Dwarf who brought lots of shooting) was stuck with killing 1 dryad or war dancer per turn with his bolt throwers and cannon. "Clearly," wrote another poster, "he didn't bring a competitive build-- if he had, his organ guns would have made quick work of those skirmishers." Actually, though, that opponent had brought 2 organ guns, which were both dead by Turn 3, despite having 32 Quarrelers defending them.

*shrug* Wood elves now do everything they were meant to do, when they first appeared 15-20 years ago. They pick a target to whittle down with shooting, then crush that target in a fast and brutal round or two of combat, all while minimizing their own casualties through exceptional maneuverability. They will, at best, have a hard time winning any kind of stand-up fight (though I actually think that a couple of 6-packs of Tree Kin may be at the heart of a viable build).

And fast cavalry and skirmishers have lost a lot of hitting power, and arrows lose effectiveness in 2500-3000 point games, because the units are so large that even weakening them is not enough to make you win a combat against them.

Really large units (50+ models) made of decent troops (T4 and/or armored-- anything that costs more than 5 point per model) are pretty rare. Against T3 lightly armored hordes (goblins, skaven, men-at-arms, marauders, skeletons, etc.) shooting works very well: At close range, 10 Glade Guard expect to generate about 4-5 kills per round-- which means that 30 Glade Guard expect to drop something like a full rank from a horde with a single turn's shooting. Give me a round at long and one at close, and then two or three units of Dryads/Tree Kin/Wardancers charging in, and I fully expect to pick up a couple hundred points from a cheap horde, while giving up nothing. As a bonus, I've probably just cleared a flank, and can spend the rest of the game happily dancing through the backfield, avoiding any other combat.

It is funny to play with Wood Elves, I have a lot of fun with them, but they can't win in a competitive environment in my opinion.

Yeah, that was exactly what I expected to find, when I decided to play them for this 9-game tourney. A couple of months later, I find myself sitting at 5-1 (and, yeah, SOME of those opponents were inexperienced, but none of them deliberately build a fluff-list, and some of them have decades of experience), which made me seriously reconsider...

[Chicago Slim]

treekin vs. flaming str 5+ attacks are dead in a single round because of the flammable rule.

A couple of points of curiosity:

First, just who's generating a bunch of S6 flaming attacks, or even a bunch of S5 flaming attacks? Chaos Knights with ensorcelled weapons and the banner of flaming attacks are definitely Treebane, but other than that, you're talking about, what, great weapons with that same banner? One unit per army, to keep away from your Tree Kin. That ought to be something you can manage.

Even then, Forest Spirits still get their Ward Save against Flaming-- so, a single S5, WS4 flaming attacker has about a 1/7 chance of causing an unsaved wound, which will then double. Not great, for sure-- but then, that's sort of the worst-case scenario, and there's very few armies that have the option of building in a *lot* of flaming attacks... Avoid the one, maybe two, bad match-ups.

[herohammer]

First, just who's generating a bunch of S6 flaming attacks, or even a bunch of S5 flaming attacks?

The only things that I can think of are Bestigors or comparable greatweapon guys in an army that doesn't run a different banner on elites. (like the AIDs banner on plaguemonks, or rapturous or frenzy banner on CK)

Being flammable does really suck but most armies only have 1 unit with flaming attacks from the banner and that unit is usually either something that would rip up treekin anyway since the trees are not likely to have character support or is a shooting unit that only has flaming to knock a single wound off of an hpa so artillery can kill it. Daemons can get flamers but that is the least of wood elves problems against them. Brettonians have flaming archers but really aren't any better than wood elves since they have the same mix of random good stuff and items with loads of overcosted units and limited unit selection. Skaven rarely ever have more than 1 warpfire thrower and they don't often take the flaming banner but they win against WE anyway so it doesn't matter. everyone else is only going to have 1 flaming unit at most pretty much.

Not making an argument here for WE being a good army but having flammable units is not the problem with the book particularly now that the only real reason to have flaming attacks is to deal with hydras and HPAs since the trololol Drakenhof doesn't exist anymore. Some armies don't actually need much help dealing with hydras and HPAs for one reason or another and considering that characters can get 2+ ward saves against you (or an entire unit with 4+ for beastmen or total immunity on the Chaos Dwarf K'daii big boy and MI) paying 10 points to improve your matchup against 2 armies in the game starts to look pretty dodgy.

[Matt.Wood88]

Hi all! Now that I have played a fair amount of games of 8th Edition with multiple different armies i would like to revisit my Woodies!
Wrote up this list that i really like to go down to Throne of Skulls with:

Spellweaver (Lore of Life)
Level 4, Divination Orb, Stone of Rebirth, Hail of Doom Arrow

Noble
BSB, Razor Standard

30 Glade Guard
Standard, Musician, Banner of Eternal Flame
10 Dryads
10 Dryads

6 Wardancers
Bladesinger
6 Treekin

6 Waywatchers
6 Waywatchers
Great Eagle
Great Eagle

Comes in at 1998pts.

Now, the plan is, Weaver and BSB go in big unit of Glade guard to pump out serious hurt with -1 to armour at long range, and then at short the S4 with AP will cause a lot of damage! If they are ever threatened with combat that the dryads, great eagles or wardancers can get them out of then they reform to 5 wide ready to recieve a charge at hopefully T7 with Regeneration.

All the rest is fairly obvious.

Would love any and all C+C on the list guys!

Cheers
Matt

[Rhuell]

Unfortunately the razor standard does not give the glade guard armor piercing shooting attacks, but only close combat attacks. Save yourself the points and make it the banner of eternal flame with resplendence for flaming, magical shooting attacks.

[Matt.Wood88]

Damn, in that case, ill switch out to my usual load out for the BSB, which everyone goes for! The Aysemdi's Bane and HoDA
Which means i am now 30 points under! If i go for the Resplendence, I will have 5 points left, Ironcurse Icon on the Weaver?
If there are any other suggestions, please share
Cheers for the quick and informative response!

[Rhuell]

For 5 points you really can never go wrong for the ironcurse icon. Especially if you are going to bunker. If you save a single wound for the unit it pays for itself.

[Matt.Wood88]

Right then, done!
Cheers Rhuell!
Well, unless there is anything else about the list that you might alter?

[laribold]

I think you've probably spent too many points on Waywatchers. One unit is enough imo and at their points cost they are just too expensive.

Maybe replace them with a secondary unit of GG to allow you to clear our chaff/finish off units without having to fire all 30 shots at it. You should be able to get another 10-12 GG.

[Matt.Wood88]

Hmm, not sure on that one, with their threat range for killing blow at 25" plus being able to manoeuvre better than glade guard I reckon they are a better choice. I will have enough models to try both when pay day rolls around so I will do some test games.
Cheers
Matt

[HurrDurr]

@ Chicago, what would you nerf about Wood Elves? Since you disagree with about 90% of the community that thinks they are underpowered, bragging about being 5-1 in one tournament doesn't mean much, unless those "battle hardened pros" somehow translate their experience into rolling better, it's still a game of dice and mentioning your tourney score repeatedly doesn't change that or make your claims any more credible. I want to see replays of the games, it's completely reasonable to believe WE could win ANY tournament. What people refer to is the odds saying "they can win just as much, it's just harder" what does that mean? To me it means you will lose games you shouldn't have lost because the book is old.

[cyberspite]

I don't think anyone is saying they need a nerf, just that if you know what you're doing then they are still capable of reliably winning games, but that doesn't mean they are op.

You do have to work harder than a lot of other armies to get the win though, which I agree, does show they are a bit behind the curve and could do with some improvements.

The main problem is with internal balance, the good units are generally pretty good but there's a lot of units in the book that just aren't worth the points, so if you want to be competitive you are pretty much stuck with the same units all the time, with maybe only a few small variations here and there.

@Matt.Wood88 - I wouldn't pin your hopes on the waywatcher's killing blow, you might get 1 or 2 but nothing you can really rely on. Also, splitting the glade guard gives you much more flexibility, a larger unit of about 15-16 with the flaming banner and then units of 10 after that. You generally want to combine your shooting but often 10 shots is enough to finish a small unit, having to shoot 30 glade guard at a few dogs or something similar would be a big waste. Smaller units also gives you more deployment drops, more options if you need hold up / redirect a dangerous unit and more places to hide your characters should the larger unit be threatened.

[Sheve]

A couple of points of curiosity:

First, just who's generating a bunch of S6 flaming attacks, or even a bunch of S5 flaming attacks? Chaos Knights with ensorcelled weapons and the banner of flaming attacks are definitely Treebane, but other than that, you're talking about, what, great weapons with that same banner? One unit per army, to keep away from your Tree Kin. That ought to be something you can manage.

Even then, Forest Spirits still get their Ward Save against Flaming-- so, a single S5, WS4 flaming attacker has about a 1/7 chance of causing an unsaved wound, which will then double. Not great, for sure-- but then, that's sort of the worst-case scenario, and there's very few armies that have the option of building in a *lot* of flaming attacks... Avoid the one, maybe two, bad match-ups.

Will not work, Flaming attacks dont normally stack with magical weapons.

[Doommasters]

Wood elves are kind of bad in 8th. The biggest problems is that they are so overpriced. but actually then you look at it, if the errata changed it so dryads warn't skirmishers, and the only size restriction was 10+. when the wood elves would be much better. Hordes of dryads with archers, tree kins and tree men supporting.

Anyway. I have made a kind of different list here.

You can't really afford to horde dryads anyway and then have lots of archer units plus all the characters and supporting units, WE units are not very cheap in the first place.

[Doommasters]

A couple of points of curiosity:

First, just who's generating a bunch of S6 flaming attacks, or even a bunch of S5 flaming attacks? Chaos Knights with ensorcelled weapons and the banner of flaming attacks are definitely Treebane, but other than that, you're talking about, what, great weapons with that same banner? One unit per army, to keep away from your Tree Kin. That ought to be something you can manage.

Even then, Forest Spirits still get their Ward Save against Flaming-- so, a single S5, WS4 flaming attacker has about a 1/7 chance of causing an unsaved wound, which will then double. Not great, for sure-- but then, that's sort of the worst-case scenario, and there's very few armies that have the option of building in a *lot* of flaming attacks... Avoid the one, maybe two, bad match-ups.

Ever been up against magma cannons? One roud of combat poof goes you trees, not that I disagree Treekin are a great unit they just fail hard versus flamming attacks. Also most armies in competitive tournaments that I have the flamming banner just for units like Treemen, hydras, HPA etc

[Doommasters]

I absolutely love this sort of hyperbole, which is awesome specifically because it cannot be disproven.

The fact that I'm 5-1 with my Wood Elves in a take-all-comers tourney clearly means that my opponents are inexperienced and/or bringing uncompetitive builds, right? I had this out in another thread earlier this week, when I wrote about how my most recent opponent (a Dwarf who brought lots of shooting) was stuck with killing 1 dryad or war dancer per turn with his bolt throwers and cannon. "Clearly," wrote another poster, "he didn't bring a competitive build-- if he had, his organ guns would have made quick work of those skirmishers." Actually, though, that opponent had brought 2 organ guns, which were both dead by Turn 3, despite having 32 Quarrelers defending them.

*shrug* Wood elves now do everything they were meant to do, when they first appeared 15-20 years ago. They pick a target to whittle down with shooting, then crush that target in a fast and brutal round or two of combat, all while minimizing their own casualties through exceptional maneuverability. They will, at best, have a hard time winning any kind of stand-up fight (though I actually think that a couple of 6-packs of Tree Kin may be at the heart of a viable build).



Really large units (50+ models) made of decent troops (T4 and/or armored-- anything that costs more than 5 point per model) are pretty rare. Against T3 lightly armored hordes (goblins, skaven, men-at-arms, marauders, skeletons, etc.) shooting works very well: At close range, 10 Glade Guard expect to generate about 4-5 kills per round-- which means that 30 Glade Guard expect to drop something like a full rank from a horde with a single turn's shooting. Give me a round at long and one at close, and then two or three units of Dryads/Tree Kin/Wardancers charging in, and I fully expect to pick up a couple hundred points from a cheap horde, while giving up nothing. As a bonus, I've probably just cleared a flank, and can spend the rest of the game happily dancing through the backfield, avoiding any other combat.



Yeah, that was exactly what I expected to find, when I decided to play them for this 9-game tourney. A couple of months later, I find myself sitting at 5-1 (and, yeah, SOME of those opponents were inexperienced, but none of them deliberately build a fluff-list, and some of them have decades of experience), which made me seriously reconsider...

I am winning about 10% of my games at the moment and drawing roughly 15%. Can you post what you are specifically doing to get these wins? I have been playing for a number of years and find I am just getting crushed in 8th edition.

So pretty much;

25% chance of a win/draw
75% chance to lose

Guess I am the only one in this situation?

[tmarichards]

I can't comment on the 75% win rate, but for myself I have around a 50% win-rate in tournaments (link to my battle reports thread in my signature). The most effective style of play that I have found is to go for an MSU shooty avoidance, with a little bit of combat punch in the form of 2 units of 3-4 Treekin to back it up- but I'm starting to use these less and less. It plays pretty much like a poor man's Lizardman army with longer ranged shooting, it all shoots and then flees every charge I can to buy a bit more time.

I personally don't think WE get completely shafted by the current edition, we just have to play a completely different style to most other armies and there is absolutely no safety net- a number of times I have thrown away games because of a single slightly below average roll of the dice that allows my opponent to get a slight lead which escalates fast. The biggest problem, I find, is that we're on completely the wrong side of the metagame following the rise of Ogres.

[Doommasters]

I can't comment on the 75% win rate, but for myself I have around a 50% win-rate in tournaments (link to my battle reports thread in my signature). The most effective style of play that I have found is to go for an MSU shooty avoidance, with a little bit of combat punch in the form of 2 units of 3-4 Treekin to back it up- but I'm starting to use these less and less. It plays pretty much like a poor man's Lizardman army with longer ranged shooting, it all shoots and then flees every charge I can to buy a bit more time.

I personally don't think WE get completely shafted by the current edition, we just have to play a completely different style to most other armies and there is absolutely no safety net- a number of times I have thrown away games because of a single slightly below average roll of the dice that allows my opponent to get a slight lead which escalates fast. The biggest problem, I find, is that we're on completely the wrong side of the metagame following the rise of Ogres.

I play like this also but like to have to build for combat as our tables are not that big, also there are a number of Chaos dwarf players that have started to counter the Ogre trend. Magma cannons kill kill 4 Treekin in a single round of shooting everytime. Not to mention the armor saves those dwarfs get make GG less than effective. Ogres are freaking fast and are very hard to take down with bow fire alone, mournfangs on both flanks make it really to hide IB know to aim the trees from the start. If you can even get into combat you have to punch through characters before you get to rank and file.

The only armies I feel I have a 50/50 chance of winning against are Bretts, Beastmen, HE and some degree WoC depending on what they bring. The only hope is to pick off a couple if units and just flee, the problem is my regular opponents this so will target my expensive units knowing that at the worst case scenario they will get a draw. The games where I win is when the enemy tries to engage me right across the board and just gets done by superior speed and movement, if you play people enough they know to focus your expensive units as WE are never going to be winning by massacre.