First try at Wood Elves, 2000pt

[oCoYoRoAoKo]

Fantasy Army: Wood Elf

Following my success with Beastman, I've decided to try out another under-represented army, Wood Elves. The below list is a result of my research. It seems solid but more input is always appreciated.

[Edited after feedback]

Lifeweaver: 305
Level4, Dispel Scroll, Stone of Rebirth
Dispel Scroll for that guaranteed dispel and the Stone of rebirth for that tasty 2++ on her last wound

Noble: 140
BSB, Hail of Doom Arrow, Asyendi's Bane
A standard BSB build with hail of doom arrow. Otherwise joins a unit of Glade Guard - has stayed in due to the treeman in the edited list

15 Glade Guard: 208
Musician, Banner, Banner of Eternal Flame
BURN HELLPITS....BURN!!!

10 Glade Guard: 126
Musician

10 Glade Guard: 126
Musician

10 Glade Guard: 126
Musician

8 Dryads: 96
8 Dryads: 96

6 Treekin: 390
My proper combat unit. With a little Dryad support they should fare quite well against most things in the game

Eagle: 50
Eagle: 50
Warmachine Hunters and a general annoyance

Treeman: 285

Any ideas on how to improve this?

[tmarichards]

A Dispel Scroll is better than the Wand in my opinion, the guaranteed stop on the "if I cast this you lose" is very very useful. The level 4 also does not need a ward save.

12 Treekin is very risky, I really don't rate them anymore as they're on the wrong end of the meta game- anything that kills Ogres, Mournfangs, knights or Demigryphs also ruins Treekin, and in a straight fight Treekin also lose to all of the above. They're still very good at killing WS3 T3 infantry, but I don't think they add enough for their points to outweigh how much of a liability they often are.

A champion in the big glade guard unit would be very useful.

[Mechanium]

The 2nd treekin unit could be a fistfull of more glade guard.

I still like a block of them to roll up a flank and pull their attention away from your glade guard who are going to want to be midfieldish so they can reach everywhere on the board.

But more then one block and you'll be hitting problems. I'd also probably go beasts over life just for wildform, life spells don't really do all that much for wood elves aside from dwellers, whereas curse, wildform, and amber spear are almost esental for we to function.

[WizzyWarlock]

Don't put Stone of Rebirth on the caster if she's using Life as once you go back above one wound the 2++ goes away. Also, even though I love Treekin, in some matchups they die so quickly it's like giving away free points. I just finished up a tournament today and every army seems to have some sort of flaming magical attacks these days, especially if they're in the new books. With all the flaming magic I'm wondering if GW have a certain hatred of Wood Elves, every new release seems to hurt them more and more. So while it sounds like a lot of potential in those two units, I'd rather go for one and spend the saved points elsewhere, probably some sort of scouting force, Scouts or Waywatchers, likely the latter. What I've found with having nothing across the table to start with is that the enemy is told to go in only one direction. That's not really what you want, you want to confuse them and send them off, split them up. If everything is coming straight across the table at you, you don't have a lot of space to run.

With magic, I'd recommend sticking with Life over Beasts for two (well, maybe three) reasons. Firstly, the spell that negates miscasts on a 2+. Secondly Rebirth, which I've found I really missed at the tournament - we have a lot of high priced models with small unit sizes so even losing a couple starts to hurt. And finally of course, Dwellers. There are a lot of big blocks of infantry with 8th Edition and Wood Elves really don't have the hitting power to deal with that. Dwellers will certainly cut the numbers down, alongside some massed shooting into the same unit. Before long that horde becomes a minor annoyance. Mix that with the Throne of Vines and you can happily throw 6 dice at Dwellers all day.

I'm also not seeing much use for a Battle Standard in a Wood Elf army as our units generally move all over the place, taking them outside of the useful range. I suppose it might be alright in a unit of Glade Riders, but that's a lot of points just for a mobile Standard. On top of that, we either make really big break tests, because of skirmish having no ranks, where a Battle Standard isn't going to be that useful, or.. we're not. Really, you should be throwing units at the enemy if you have a sure win (or at least a good chance), such as a double Dryad charge against a small unit or the Treekin against some S3/T3 troops. Obviously it doesn't always work out that way, but I've found in most cases the presence of a BSB wouldn't have made a blind bit of difference.

[oCoYoRoAoKo]

Thanks all for the feedback. Had my very first couple of games with the elves during the weekend;

Game 1 was a win vs lizardmen (life slaan, templeguard, big block of saurus, Stegadon, a couple of salamanders, 2 units of skinks). everything performed pretty much as much as i expected. T9 Treekin are a hard nut to crack even with flaming Saurus warriors. I messed up a little with my deployment so i was unable to get those supporting charges off but overall, the two powerhouse Treekin units pretty much won it for me, dual charging the warriors and then the temple guard whilst the waywatchers mopped up the Salamanders/Stegadon and the Dryads took the Skinks.

Game 2 was a narrow loss vs Warriors of Chaos (lvl4, BSB, Festus, Chosen, Warriors, 2 Warshrines - all Tzeentch). My opponent had some great rolls for his saves in this game which didnt help me much. Again, T9 Treekin were amazing but they couldn't stand unsupported for that long against the warriors (must work on my deployment). The fight against the chosen went much better. Thinned them down a little with shooting, then ran the treekin in which proceeded to destroy them. I would have won the game by a hefty margin if i managed to make the (now unitless) lvl4 and bsb flee. Though my charge with the lifeweaver to tie up the BSB flopped and i lost her in a flurry of 1s (who knew that a 2+ ward could fail so hard :P ).

So onto your comments/suggestions:

Overall i am going to stick with life for a bit longer. Regrowth and Flesh to Stone is pretty much the staple of my magic phase when applied to treekin. Also, throne of vines helped immensely against pandemonium.

The banner on the BSB is going to go i think. I agree that it was pretty much always out of range to support my units and in breakpoint, if his unit goes then i loose the game anyway. The model itself is still useful so he shall stay. Ill invest his 25 banner points into a couple more Glade Guard.

I'm going to stick with the 2 units of Treekin for just a little bit longer. With good support they are killing machines and regrowth+lifebloom meant that they lost very few casualties, even against those flaming attacks. If i do swap them out it would probably be for more glade guard but at the moment I'm finding them a little lackluster against anything that isn't a smaller unit (though i have played 2 extremely tough armies so far which doesn't help).

My next game is on Tuesday vs Orks&Goblins (Warboss+Savage Orcs, Big unit of night goblins, Squig herd, Mangler Squig, 2 Rock Lobbas, 1 Doom Diver, Trolls). I consider this the real test of the army. The eagles should actually be useful in this game for taking out warmachines/luring fanatics and with lots of minimal armor, the way watchers should be able to do some damage.

[tmarichards]

I think you must be very wary about becoming reliant on T9 Treekin. I have no idea how people consistently manage to get this, as it's one of the easiest things in the world to see coming and stop, and there's no excuse for letting it happen beyond bad play :/

That said, congratulations on your results so far.

[oCoYoRoAoKo]

I think you must be very wary about becoming reliant on T9 Treekin. I have no idea how people consistently manage to get this, as it's one of the easiest things in the world to see coming and stop, and there's no excuse for letting it happen beyond bad play :/

That said, congratulations on your results so far.

Well, in my games, i never managed to roll up Dwellers (got earthblood/Fury of the Forest, throne of vines, Regrowth and Flesh to Stone in both cases) so every turn was pretty much me throwing 6 dice at Flesh to Stone when Throne of Vines was up. Every now and again it was a regrowth but that's about it. The average score on 6 dice+lvl4 is 25 meaning that an opponent will have to invest alot of dice/dispel scroll trying to get rid of it.

I would imagine that had i rolled up a spell like dwellers, it would be pretty high on my opponents dispelling list so that would be a priority for him to dispel over flesh to stone.

[tmarichards]

This is a perfect example of why I hate Life magic, no subtlety to the lore. Also, if your opponent is letting you have both Throne and Flesh to Stone at the same time they're really doing something very, very wrong.

[immortal git]

I'm with tmarichards on this on, if it was me stopping throne of vines is top on the agenda. Then you can stop whatever and even if you don't its not as big a deal. But saying that a lot of the time if I got throne of vines first turn people would ignore it throughout because the spells I was chucking out were so scary.

Edit: also where's your treeman :P

[oCoYoRoAoKo]

This is a perfect example of why I hate Life magic, no subtlety to the lore.

True. You can't deny its effectiveness though For me, the nail in the coffin for beasts was the heavy use of regrowth during my last game. When you are going up against flaming chaos warriors in combat, there will always be some casualties.

But saying that a lot of the time if I got throne of vines first turn people would ignore it throughout because the spells I was chucking out were so scary.

Pretty much this. Ive noticed that there are alot of support spells that people let through just because they don't have any immediate impact (the amount of times Ive managed to get the Slaanesh daemon stupidity ray off is crazy). Remains in play spells are even worse because sometimes they are just forgotten about.

Edit: also where's your treeman :P

The initial list i wrote had one actually. I'm actually not sure on them because for their points you can get 4 Treekin which I'm sure should perform better - The only thing that i really like is the stubborn element that they bring to the table. I run a Ghorgon in my Beastmen list for pretty much the same reason.

[EDIT] Though for the points of that second unit of Treekin i can get a Treaman and another unit of glade guard/dryads... now that's something to think about - As a side note, Ive updated the list

[immortal git]

I would rather have a treeman and some GG than a second unit of treekin, just because its different

[tmarichards]

1 Treeman is a bit too much like free points, there are a lot of thing that can deal with him fairly quickly. Conventional wisdom is take 2 so that at least 1 will survive to do his job, or take none. You can take 3 in bigger points games where you fit in both the Ancient and the level 4.

[immortal git]

I think keeping life with the treeman is a good idea, he regains wounds every time you cast a spell, yes please

[oCoYoRoAoKo]

1 Treeman is a bit too much like free points, there are a lot of thing that can deal with him fairly quickly. Conventional wisdom is take 2 so that at least 1 will survive to do his job, or take none. You can take 3 in bigger points games where you fit in both the Ancient and the level 4.

I think keeping life with the Treeman is a good idea, he regains wounds every time you cast a spell, yes please

Ok, lets find a happy medium. I quite like having the 4th unit of Glade Guard in there. It gives 45 bow shots in total and overall makes the army feel more 'Wood Elf'. On the subject of the Treeman, i have no problems running a single big monster in my lists. My Daemons have a KOS and my Beastmen run a Ghorgon, both of which are more squishy then a Treeman. Besides, I find that psychologically its a big boost to have a super-monster on the board.

On the subject of which lore to take, the jury is still out. Beasts certainly has some great things going for it (Wildform, Amber Spear and Curse would be my first choices with Transformation as a hilarious bonus) but so does life (Flesh to Stone, Regrowth and Dwellers with a good lore attribute). Unfortunately, life pretty much requires that i have throne of vines active and Wildform is a better 'guaranteed' spell then Regenerate.

Overall i think that it will come down to testing them both out. Though there is a reason i dropped lore of life on my Daemonic heralds - I prefer buffing my own units to do more damage then trying to minimize the damage effects of taking wounds.

[PeG]

the problem is that we actually need both beasts and life. Life is great to keep some of our expensive models alive especially if you take large trees (treekin, treeman). The toughness buff is really good also if you are unable to keep throne of wines up and although doing that was relatively easy in the early days of 8th it has become a dispel priority at least if my opponent doesnt think I have enough dice to cast dwellers later in the turn or has a dispel scroll available.

On the other hand lore of beasts can really help in killing all these T5 or 2+ AS things that I tend to run into on a regular basis. Glade guards and dryads can deal with one or a couple of them but when the opponent fields multiple models with high T or armour save I am usually in trouble.

but since I face skaven a lot it is usually difficult to bring enough bows to actually make a difference in his body count and dwellers really helps with that so unless you can take two casters there is no real good way to do this.

For the moment I use lore of life when I take large trees and lore of beasts if I dont. I also find myself taking lists based on only GG and dryads with a few support units more frequently lately (ie no treeman, no treekin, obviously no dragon.....)

[oCoYoRoAoKo]

the problem is that we actually need both beasts and life. Life is great to keep some of our expensive models alive especially if you take large trees (treekin, treeman)....For the moment I use lore of life when I take large trees and lore of beasts if I dont. I also find myself taking lists based on only GG and dryads with a few support units more frequently lately (ie no treeman, no treekin, obviously no dragon.....)

Keeping this in mind, I had a game yesterday with the newer list VS Vampire Counts (Heimlich, Krell, 2 lower vampires, 2 blocks skeletons, 1 Block GG, Bloodknights and those Ethereal Cavalry - Not the greatest list but the player has a solid grasp of the rules). By the end of the game i had lost 2 units of glade guard and my opponent, everything aside from his grave guard. My spells were flesh to stone, dwellers, throne of vines and fury of the forest. Overall i got much more use out of dwellers then regrowth in my previous games so that was quite positive. The dispel Scroll was also more useful then the wand so that's staying in.

Overall, I'm enjoying the re-designed list so i think ill stick with that for a while. The idea is to have it come to January throne of skulls so there is plenty of time to practice.

[King Arthur]

you should try beasts when you have a noble put him and your wizard in a single unit of glade guard or dryads and watch your level 4 wizard on 2/3 dice use savage beast of horros +3 strength +3 attacks is nasty and wyssans wildform S 5 T 5 dryads and S 6 T 6 tree kin very very nasty could you fit in a level 3 life imagine the results s6 t8 treekin it would wreck your opponent in my Brets i have a level 2 and a level 4 and it works a charm.

[oCoYoRoAoKo]

OK so Ive had my last test game with the WEs and I'm pretty sold on the list (Lifeweaver, BSB, 4 units glade guard, 2 units Dryads, Treekin, Treeman, Eagles). Incidentally it was against orcs (Warboss, lvl4 Orc Shaman, BSB, savage orcs, squig herd, Night Goblin block, Some chariots, Mangler Squig, 2 Stone Throwers, Doom Diver, Trolls).

I played a largely defensive game, using bait-and-flee to get the savage orks into the wood in my deployment zone and then flank charging the dryads in to hold them for a couple of turns whilst the rest of my army dealt with everything else - Turns out flaming goblins are no match for treekin :P Lots of maneuvering and counter-charges later, all that was left was about 7 savage orks, the level 4 with one wound left and 4 out of the 6 trolls. This compared to my 2 units of glade guard, Dryads, Treekin, Treeman, and Lifeweaver. I could have charged the savage orks in the last turn with the Treekin but it wasn't necessary at that point.

Overall, I'm quite happy with the list. I think ill stick with life magic as it seems to be quite effective with just the one unit of Treekin and Treeman to concentrate on. i did actually get dwellers in this game (along with regrowth, flesh to stone and throne of vines) and it proved to be a good distraction from regrowth in terms of my opponents dispel dice.