[hodgdog]

I am involved in an upcoming Battalion only tournament.

Each player can only bring a single battalion to the tournament and may only use the units that come with the battalion box. Whoever wins, gets their money back for the battalion. I am quite new to wood elves and I need advice for playing this small character-less game.

I think that I will be playing against Bretonnians and Chaos Warriors at the very least. I have a feeling I will face others too, like Empire and High Elves. And maybe any others that have a battalion box.

Does anyone have any tactical or other recommendations for me?
(and yes i have read all the Wood ELf Tactics I could find here)

 

[tbeckett]

is there a set points limit or is is just what ever you can field with the box?

 

[hodgdog]

There is NO point limit, it is just what comes in the box!

 

[tbeckett]

I think I have the following list right, correct me if I am wrong:

Box comes with:
24 Glade Guard
8 Glade Riders
12 Dryads


Unfortunatly the batalion box units don't come in sizes that players typically use, but we will see what we can do.

Dryads usually are fielded in units of 8, but this is a special case cause we want to get as much stuff on the table for you, so field all 12 of them and give them a champ

Glade riders are a little tricky, they usually get fielded in units of 5 with a musician, but again we want to get as much out of the box as possible. You could field all 8 of them in a unit since there isnt enough for two units. Definatly give them a musician and even though in a regular points game a champion is not worth the points, in this case you might consider taking it for the extra 1BS on the champ. Even though its not usually done, I would reccomend taking a standard on your glade riders, but be careful only to get flank charges off. The only time you should be charging with your glade riders is to support your dryads in the flank, or maybe to hit a warmachine crew. Just be careful because the extra 100vps from a lost banner can make or break games at such a small point value.

Onto the glade guard. Usually we field them in units of 10 and a musician can be alright but not nessisary if you wish to spend the points elsewhere. You can probably get away with fielding 2 units of 12, but they may be hard to manouver if you put them all in a 12 long single rank line. If you had one more guard I would reccomend 2 units of 10 and one unit of 5 scouts but unfortunatly we don't have that one extra elf. Hopefully you will get a hill in your deployment zone and then you can rank them 6x2 and shoot them out. As for unit upgrades, give both units a musician. Usually we dont upgrade to a champion, but in this case, as with the glade riders, since points don't really matter, the extra ballistic skill could help. I would not take a standard because glade guard are terrible in close combat. They need to shoot things down before they get to them. Fleeing is probably a better option of standing and shooting, unless you have a good chance of causing a panic test or if you don't think you can out run them (watch out for cavalry).


As for the armies you will be facing, bretonians I am not too familiar with their batalion box, but I think it will contain some knights of some sort, watch out for them, they will be hard to beat in close combat due to their high armor saves, but a charge with dryads supported by glade guard in the flank may be able to take out enough to break them (especially if you then outnumber them with your fear causing dryads). The knights aren't fast cavalry like the glade riders, so you can run circles around them shooting and marchblocking them for a little while if you like.

As for the warriors of chaos, they will have warhounds, marauders, chaos knights and chaos warriors. first thing to do is shoot down the warhounds and marauders and they are squishy. Your dryads can easily take marauders and warhounds in combat. For the warriors, if you get dryads to charge them in the front will probably not be enough to win combat, so you might need a supporting flank charge from your glade riders. As for the knights, my only suggestion is to shoot them down and try not to get into combat with them. Bait them into charging your glade riders, but dryads will not do well in combat with them, as their attacks will bounce off 1+ armor saves, and the knights have magical attacks so you won't get a ward save. Also pay close attention to how each unit is marked. If he has alot of nurgle units it will be bad for you (-1 BS to shoot at them). If he has mark of khorne units, you can bait them into charging your glade riders at akward angles and then fleeing using the feigned flight rule.

On the whole, your general strategy should be to shoot down as much as possible before you engage the enemy. Get accross the board with your glade riders to march block and to bait the enemy into charge/flee traps with your glade riders. Since you only have 2 potential combat units it will be important to use them together as often as possible. The two key things to do to ensure your wins; Out manouver and out shoot. It might be a good strategy to take out their weak units and then play a points denial game just keeping your units alive an capturing board quarters.


So the list would be

12 Dryads + champ - 156
8 Glade Riders + champ + music + standard - 228
12 Glade Guard +champ + music - 156
12 Glade Guard +champ + music - 156
total = 696


and a typical WoC for this type of tourny list will look like for a comparison

12 Chaos Warriors - full command, magic banner, a mark, shields = 277
20 Chaos Marauders - full command, a mark, light armor and shields = 170
5 Chaos Warhounds poison attacks, scaley skin = 50
5 Chaos Warhounds poison attacks, scaley skin = 50
5 Chaos Knights - full command, magic banner, a mark = 305
total = 852

as you can see you will be outnumbered (which is why this tourny set up is a neat idea but should have a points limit to make things fair)

 

[hodgdog]

Thanks for all the advice! My only thought would be breaking the Glade Guard into a unit of 10 scouts and a unit of 14 normal GGuard... Would this be advisable? At this point level is loosing the strength 4 long bow worth it? The battalion box does say that the GG can be modeled either way...

The brettonians also come with a pegasus knight, men at arms and bowman... but im mostly worried about the knights

 

[tbeckett]

S4 long bows are always worth it, and an extra 4 shots can be very important. Scouts are usually not taken because of their high point cost and the loss of the s4 bows. the s4 is very valuable, means you will be wounding on 3s on T3 or 4s on T4, and its -1 to their armor save. It is very useful, and hopefully in the next edition of the wood elf book all wood elf bows will have the s4 at short range rule, but that is merely a rumor/wishful thinking on the part of seasoned wood elf players.
Anyways back on track, since we don't care about points, we can look at the difference between the two choices using a bit of magical mathhammer.

1 scout shots at short range, 4/6 chance of hitting
0.6666 S3 hits on T3 cause 0.3333 wounds
0.6666 S3 hits on T4 cause 0.2222 wounds

1 glade guard shot at short range, 4/6 chance of hitting
0.6666 S4 hits on T3 cause 0.4444 wounds
0.6666 S4 hits on T4 cause 0.3333 wounds

1 scout or glade guard shots at long range, 3/6 chance of hitting
0.5 hits on T3 cause 0.25 wounds
0.5 hits on T4 cause 0.1667 wounds


There are the numbers for wounding via shooting. I would go with the S4 just be cause it is S4 and can punch through things. But it depends what kind of game you want to play. If you are going for a points denial style, the scouts would be very useful because they are skirmishers and can move out of the way of stuff before it charges them. Avoid losing combat by avoiding combat all together.

With my reccomendation of all glade guard, I would try and deploy them with one on each side of your deployment zone and angle them to face the middle. This will force your opponent to choose one to go after with their quick cavalry, and you can shoot them with cross fire while they are going, and if they do get there, you only lose one unit and by the time they get turned around and over to the other side of the board, the game will be over hopefully.

Onto some bretonian strategy. I havn't fought bretonians before but I can draw similar conclusions based upon similar units in other armies.

1 Pegasus Knight
20 Men-at-arms
16 Bowmen
8 Knights of the Realm

The pegasus knight should be your first priority, it is flying and can charge you by turn 2, shoot it down with all your shooting asap. If there is only 1, he is T4, and at long range you have a 0.1667 chance of causing a wound, so 24 shots is 4 wounds, I think they have 2+ armor so you have a 0.6668 chance of causeing 1 wound (they have 2 wounds). By turn 2 he should be in short range and you can let forth another volley. Since he is short range and you have S4 bows, you are doing 0.3333 chance of wounding, meaning 8 wounds. And his AS will be reduced by one to a 3+ armor save, causing 2.666 unsaved wounds, killing a single pegasus knight.
Onto more pressing matters. The knights are pretty nasty, just about as nasty as chaos knights but not as bad, no magic weapons, only T3 and only a 2+ armor save. Shooting at these guys in short range with 24 shots means 3.5 unsaved wounds each turn and they only have one wound each. Dryads can hold up decently in combat IF you get the charge off (if you don't lances aren't nice to dryads), but will probably lose the first round of combat by 1 just because of static combat res of outnumber and standard. If you can get a flank charge or outnumber (or both) then you should be able to break these knights.
Onto Men at arms. They are a cheap, weak meele unit, almost identical to chaos marauders. Dryads can easily take them in combat, and a glade rider charge in the flank should be enough to win combat against them.
With the bowmen, they only have BS3 and can't get S4 attacks, so you should be able to out shoot them. In one volley from them into your glade guard they will cause 2.666 unsaved wounds so it can be a little painful, but your shooting at them will cause 6 unsaved wounds with 24 shots at long range, so if it comes down to a straight shooting match you will quickly win. A good strategy would be use your dryads as a screen between his archers and a unit of yours, if he tries to shoot at dryads he will statistically only kill one per volley. It would be best to send your glade riders around their flank and get a flank charge off with them. Avoid a frontal charge with the glade riders because the bretonians have a special defensice stakes rule that makes them count as being behind a defended obsticle, meaning you don't get the benifits of charging - no +1S from spears.

 

[MobiusPrime]

Geebus tapdancing Kryst chill with the mathhammer!

 

[Forsaken2544]

Another idea (And this is probably pretty sneaky):
Use some of the extra glade guard, dryads, or glade riders to make characters. One of the dryads can be branchwraith. convert up some of the glade guard to make nobles and/or highborn.

You are still only using the parts from the box, but you are thinking creatively. "outside the box" if you will.

Respectfully,
--Forsaken