New WE Treeman

[TsukeFox]

Vamps, dwarfs, empire,--- dark elves, warriors-then finaly WE or Brets
Just a guess

Personally I am ready to give my WE the boot

[Morkash]

@Ygdrasil:

There are no statistics about popularity as far as I know. I only know of two lists, one is the T3 Statistic from a tournament organisation website and other are the results of the Albion campaign. Sure, the latter thing was 10 years ago, but I suppose it is better than nothing.
The albion results are as following:
Wood Elves were mid field with 2617 games, Tomb Kings, Daemons and Dogs of War were below them (less than 1k each) while Dark elves (9296 games), high Elves (7732 games), Empire (6368) and Greenskins (5320) leading.

The T3 statistics list Wood Elves as mid field too with 3408 games, below are Ogre Kingdoms (1692), Beastmen (1485) and Dogs of War (609) as well as the SoC lists and other smaller ones. Leading are Vampire Counts (4533), Dark Elves (4529), Warriors of Chaos (4353) and Empire (4130).

As already said, these stastitics are hardly the best data, but they give a rough picture, I think. Then again there are rumours that Dark eldar did not sell that well (while others say they sell incredibly good) despite them getting a complete overhaul and lots of attention. And the new flexible release plan from GW does not make things easier, I suppose!

I'd like to see that Treeman model, a mate of mine would be happy about a new one for sure! (He currently uses a beautiful female model, from Ultraforge I think)

[Tlotsqi]

T3 stats mustn't be so wrong, when one of my friend worked at GW, he said that DE were their best fantasy sales, dwarfs, HE, WOC, LM, and VC were among the other best sales, but it was 6 or 7 years ago...

[Nocculum]

They finecasted the treeman because doubtless, there will be Treeman, and then TREEMAN! options in the book

[Lukasz_VT]

If it is as high as the thundertusk's banner, then it is flippin' HUGE

[Harry]

Can anyone please explain why Wood Elves don't get any love from GW?

I'll give it a crack.

My guess is it has something to do with inspiration and whether the studio individually and/or collectively are inspired and feel they can bring something new to an army. If there are lots of exciting ideas that they want to make happen an army gets moved up. If there is a lack of exciting ideas an army slides. (I am just guessing).

There are no statistics about popularity as far as I know....

Thanks for that.
That was interesting.

[Tokamak]

I'm sure this is a multi-kit enabling you to either build a treeman or a high elf ship.

[Harry]

I'm sure this is a multi-kit enabling you to either build a treeman or a high elf ship.

That actually made me laugh out loud. Classic.

[Ludaman]

Drat to these rumours, I was hoping to get Brets and wood elves before the world ends sometime in 2012. Oh well...

[ThrowN]

My guess is it has something to do with inspiration and whether the studio individually or and collectively are inspired and feel they can bring something new to an army. If there are lots of exciting ideas that they want to make happen an army gets moved up. If there is a lack of exciting ideas an army slides. (I am just guessing).

I was about to write about the same answer. So +1 for that.

Sorry, can't resist posting my own take on the matter:

WE have a lot of characteristic units, fitting their fluff perfectly. Which btw was strongly altered and expanded for their "new" book. This leaves a lot less room than the current book releases had (OK, TK, Dark Eldar, Grey Knights, Necrons). Being the tree huggers they are, there's no technilogical or arkane advance, too. You can only have that many types of trees/bowmen.

Additionaly, they have an amazing range of models (beside maybe treekin/treeman). Especially their characters should make any DE player cry! There's not much for GW to do here.

They would do well with an WD rule update, I don't think they really need an armybook. Though I'm really looking forward to that big(ger) tree.

[MajorWesJanson]

I'm sure this is a multi-kit enabling you to either build a treeman or a high elf ship.

Don't forget it can make an Empire Bonfire...

[O&G'sRule]

It surprises me that wood elves have been ignored for so long, they were a major part of fantasy once. They dont have that air of poncy dullness that puts alot of people off of HE's so they should be as important to fantasy as Eldar are to 40k. Brets too are surpisingly ignored as I know alot of historical games players used to buy them for the horses, so theres even another market there for those

[Gekiganger]

It surprises me that wood elves have been ignored for so long, they were a major part of fantasy once. They dont have that air of poncy dullness that puts alot of people off of HE's so they should be as important to fantasy as Eldar are to 40k. Brets too are surpisingly ignored as I know alot of historical games players used to buy them for the horses, so theres even another market there for those

I'm surprised they're being left so long, but I'd rather wait for the studio to feel they can do something with the army than have it produced for the sake of being done, the Orc book before the latest was written by an author who didn't actually like the army iirc, that didn't really fare well.

[The bearded one]

Don't forget it can make an Empire Bonfire...

There better be customizable bits in there to build a Dwarf bonfire..

[O&G'sRule]

I'm surprised they're being left so long, but I'd rather wait for the studio to feel they can do something with the army than have it produced for the sake of being done, the Orc book before the latest was written by an author who didn't actually like the army iirc, that didn't really fare well.

yeah I agree it should be done properly, though I doubt theyd take too long updating some armies (10 year wait for spacemarines? I doubt it). The thing is though, some armies have had the odd small release here and there, even if its direct only. These guys get nothing at all

[Ender Shadowkin]

There better be customizable bits in there to build a Dwarf bonfire..

ooooh that stings, your getting added to THE LIST sir


I think Harry is spot on, those die hard WE players amoung us remember how long we had to use that cursed PDF (cursed at AND by WE players). The rational at the time was that none of the studio staff felt inspired enough to take a shot at them.

Also working against them is that the models are all currently fantastic (well except for the Treeman and Treekin but anyway ) most of the gamers out there want to focus on rules, but the design studio tends to be more about making and selling great looking scultpures. You can't say any of the wood elf models look dated, like some of the other armies that have slid up the list, some are bad just not dated.

In the mean time, some people will keep buying them because they look cool, and they will be "challenging " army to run at tournies. They are not impossible to win withanyway I'm running at an even 50% in tournament play for the year and still having fun (well they are currently cooling their heels in the case with all this SoM stuff, but I was having fun :-) ).

My personal conspiracy theory though is that they are going to time the release with the Hobbit movie, which will feature some of our sylvan friends. Note the halfings rumored to be in the empire book.yeah ...yeah, you with me?

[Freenut]

I'll give it a crack.

My guess is it has something to do with inspiration and whether the studio individually and/or collectively are inspired and feel they can bring something new to an army. If there are lots of exciting ideas that they want to make happen an army gets moved up. If there is a lack of exciting ideas an army slides. (I am just guessing).

This is how it was explained to me by the people I have talked to at GW. In a nut shell all the armies are being looked at by the studio. Ideas are passed back and forth. Not so much for rules but for what they can add to the armies, like new monsters, characters and/or units. After this artist and sculptors become involve. It is my understanding that rules and books are actually one of the last steps in an army's update. And the studio will go with projests that are further along most of the time as opposed to what "needs' an update. I would think that this is still more or less the way GW operates on, but then the people that laid most of this out for me is no longer involved with GW or the studio.

[lbecks]

yeah I agree it should be done properly, though I doubt theyd take too long updating some armies (10 year wait for spacemarines? I doubt it). The thing is though, some armies have had the odd small release here and there, even if its direct only. These guys get nothing at all

The Necrons have been a nine year wait since they got their big update in 2002. I would imagine the WE and Brets to be on a similar time schedule to update their non-core models.

[Tregar]

There better be customizable bits in there to build a Dwarf bonfire..

Dwarf bonfires are made from metal/stone, check the fluff

[R-Love]

Don't forget it can make an Empire Bonfire...

It had better include a witch...