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New to Wood Elves

1K views 16 replies 10 participants last post by  Vespasian 
#1 ·
Well, I've officially begun my venture into Warhammer Fantasy by purchasing a Highborn, Noble, and a small number of Glade Guard (6). So, I'm excited.

After perusing the Warhammer rulebook, I've noticed several differences that I'll have to work with, but I'm thoroughly excited to try something different.

Anyway, I'm coming from 40k playing Sisters of Battle and Space Marines, which means I'm used to tough basic minis with good survivablity. I've noticed that this isn't really the case for Warhammer.

So, I'm turning to the experts, where's a good place to start with Wood Elves, and how can I make the transition from Space Marines any easier?
 
#3 ·
It is kinda hard to compare 40K to Fantasy (at least this is what I think). The best advice that I can give you with starting a Fantasy army is to start out with a 1,000 point army and eventually work your way up to the point size you want. Some of the units that I would buy are: Dryads (best point for point model in the WE army), Glade Guard (best archers in the game), Glade Riders (which are great for flank/rear charges), Wardancers (bread and butter of a WE army), Spellsinger(s) and some Wild Riders. This will give you a broad choice of units. Eventually when you work your way up to a bigger game I would buy a Treeman.....or 2 (I run 2 in a 2,000 point army). All in all it's up to you but I really can't tell you how to make a transistion from Space Marines to Wood Elves. If you're looking for an easy transaction I would go with Dwarves instead of the Wood Elves. Hope this helps!!!
 
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#4 ·
You really can't go wrong with Dryads and Archers. Dryads are high str, high to skirmishing combat troops with high initiative and movement, and two attacks each. Many players consider them the best combat skirmishing unit in the game. I run two units of 8, and that's light compared to some players.

After that, the unit I'd recommend almost as a matter of necessity is wardancers. Most deadly WE unit in all the games I've played. After that, I think it's a matter of preference and style as to what units you take next.



 
#5 ·
So, I'm turning to the experts, where's a good place to start with Wood Elves, and how can I make the transition from Space Marines any easier?
WE are T3 with no save. About as far removed from Space Marines as you can get.

They are a challenging army that relies on manouverability to win games. You can't just steamroll your opponents like a brettonian player, you have to finesse them.

The other guys have all mentioned staple units that are tried and proven. Basically it will come down to your style of play. There are sledom right or wrong units, just knowing how to use them that can be tricky.

Where marine units can stand alone the WE army has to act as a whole or it will be torn to shreads.
 
#8 ·
I was thoroughly thrashed by Tzeentch Chaos.
This happens to me on a regular basis. It's Orange Fire that does it :realmad: .

Ok, so think of Wood Elves as Dark Eldar and you'll be somewhere close to the mark. Of course, this is Fantasy not 40k so that comparison is kind of moot.

The key is movement. Never stand still. Run rings round your opponent. Shooting is helpful but mostly it's comes second to combat. Magic is for support; don't pin your battle plan on it. Move into positions where you can fight combats on your own terms, and you'll wipe the floor. Get out-manoeveured and you'll lose :yes:. Simple as that.

If you want hard-hitting, manoeveurable and tough units, Dryads have the stat-line of a Space Marine (more or less; there's no real comparison of course, but just remember the number 4 and you can't really go wrong here) and Treemen are as hard as a Space Marine should be (if this was the movies, a Space Marine would have the stats of a Treeman methinks).

Hope that's of use to you. Keep on truckin'.

GS
 
#7 ·
Speaking of hammers, watchout for dwarves, WE relies on flank with them but they make it really hard. Yup.... hard....
 
#9 ·
If you know ahead of time you're facing a Tzeentch army, they're easy to deal with. A large group of glade guard with magic attacks will pincushion horrors and flamers into oblivion.

Glad to see you on the WE boards, Adrian. Meanwhile, I'm getting ready to make my push over to the SM boards here soon. It's a little exchange program. I'm curious about your last post and to get some specifics about that game. Your last comment made me think you might be looking at dwarves. Don't do it, man. Last thing the world needs is another freakin' dwarf player.
 
#12 ·
Against anything with a limited ward save, you can take a large block of glade guard and have them led by a noble with the spite that turns their attacks magical. DavidVC04 did this in a WE vs. WE game and (I believe) had a lot of luck with it.

Against TK (never actually played against them, so take it for what it's worth), you'll need a lot of magic defense and some good CR to take down large units - for WE this means combined charges. I'm sure there are others here who can advise you more specifically.
 
#13 ·
TK vs WE is actually one of the most interesting tactical games in Fantasy at the moment. Both armies rely so much on movement compared to other armies that its not funny. Wood Elves have the edge is shooting skill and using terrain to their advantage, but Tomb Kings bring a huge magic superiority and TK arrows are a thorn in the side of WE's (they negate the skirmisher/cover protection WE's get). And the SSC's can really do a number on just about anything the WE's have. All and all an amazing matchup to watch/play.
 
#14 ·
Tomb kings aren't that bad really. Their shooting is decent but only because they suffer no penalites (i.e. always hit on 5's). Their movement can be frightening, but it's never been a problem for me. I don't think they're especially hard to beat, you just have to know which spells to let pass, and which to dispel.

A general rule of thumb that I find works very well is to allow their spells to pass unless the following apply:

Urgency would allow a unit to charge you
Smiting would allow a unit to hit you in combat
Summoning would allow a unit to fill a full rank or heal a character

Any other time, the spells are decidedly ineffective, so don't worry about them. You can outmaneoveur them easily, and run rings around them in combat as well. Your goal should be to kill the Heirophant as quickly as possible so they start to crumble. Once he's out of the way, just give them the run around. The "no break tests" thing can be a pain, but be sure to avoid big units as much as possible and you'll be fine.

GS
 
#17 ·
Killing the heirophant is like killing a VC general. The army starts to take ld tests and crumble. It's an almost surefire way to win against TK or VC.

All undead troops are unbreakable per the main rule book. Nasty thing, that.
Just to clarify these statements:

1. Your opponent is supposed to tell you which model the Heirophant is before the game. If he doesn't tell you he's probably cheating (the rule is clearly specified in the TK book, and not easy to 'overlook'), so make sure you find out which model it is. Furthermore, his army is obliged to have one, so if he says he hasn't got one then his army ain't legal. You'd be surprised how often people have tried these tricks on me.

As an aside, another thing to watch out for is that TK have to cast spells in a very strict order of casting models, so make sure you know the order of spellcasters too. Anyway, killing the Heirophant means that the models in his army will start to "die", making life easier for you.

2. As for the unbreakable thing, what happens is that a unit loses a number of models equal to the number it loses combat by, instead of taking break tests (e.g. TK combat res = 5, WE combat res = 10, TK lose 5 models). So they don't run, they just lose additional models.

Golden rule: kill the characters, because the rest of the army is mostly superfluous. Cut off the head, the body dies...

GS
 
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