Thanks for the great episode, yes i do agree that Wood Elves are the “Worst Elves”, but they are still the worst out of 3 very good books so its not that bad.
I think people underestimate the new wood elves as they lost quite a bit of strength (the glade guard bow, forest spirits) and didn’t gain a Prowess, but the new options they gained make them more able to deal with many different armies.
Units like Waywatchers, Waystalkers, Glade Guard, Wildwood Rangers, Wild Riders, Sisters of the Thorn and Treemen (yes is still rate Treemen, i do have 4 of them after all) these are all very good, and in the case of the Waywatchers and Stalkers exceptional, units. Armies that have a High Armour Save and a low toughness need to think twice when facing wood elf armies because of all that anti armour, and Tomb Kings and Vamps really need to be wary of the Arrow of Kurnous and the Waystalker. I look forward to playing with my new and improved Wood Elves.
I voted no, though really it should be a “no, so long as…”
Yeah, on the face dark elves and high elves are both stronger books. They both have lots of powerful options that quite OBVIOUSLY are strong and wreck face.
Wood elves don’t have a cauldron star or a banner of the world dragon. They don’t have a stand out monster or a standout arcane item that is going to break the meta. Their units are fragile and WILL NOT stand up to a fair fight. But when the fuck have wood elves EVER fought you in a fair fight? They danced around you firing their bows, then only charged in once you were weak enough to finish off. Grinding their big unit against your big unit was NEVER their style, so of course their units aren’t going to stand up to a mathhammer comparison.
What this book does is give wood elf generals from the last book all the tools they need to eviscerate foes in the current meta. It’s a book that the internet is going to ignore, that you will rarely see math-obsessed power gamers running. But the book has all the tools it needs to be a good sleeper army, and I suspect that in not too long we’ll start seeing some serious powerhouse wood elf generals placing high in major tournaments.
I would argue that there has never been a book that power games have ignored. 🙂
Also, keep in mind that everything you just said could just as easily be applied to the High Elves or the Dark Elves, and they could still do it better. The only thing that edges them out in the shooting phase is Waywatchers, but even still HE and DE have better supporting units.
Good luck hitting with dark shards though when you’re multishotting at long range through a forest 😛
My point, though, is that there’s a lot less “hidden filth” in the DE/HE books. Pretty much everything they have is rather straight-forward. Everything in the DE book except crossbows and bolt throwers wants to be in combat, and the High Elf book isn’t far behind. The first thing our resident Wood Elf player said when he looked at the new book was “cool, now I NEVER need to fight people.”
Think Shadow + sisters + waywatchers + no modifier/poison glade guard. Running a big horde of infantry? Cool now it’s movement 2 (miasma) and a third of it dies if it doesn’t stay still (curse). Demigryphs? Let’s see how well they fare against 30 archers who hit them on 3s, wound them on 3s (withering), and don’t allow armour saves. Got your level 4 in a skirmishing bunker behind your lines? Glade Guard still hit them on 3s, so not anymore. There’s poison for taking down frost phoenixes. Oh and that nifty BotWD white lion death star? Yeah it’s T1 (withering) now and waywatchers hit them on 3s and kill them on 2s. GLHF.
That’s why I don’t think this book is “worst elves.” In an objective mathhammer sense sure, but on the table I think it’s going to be a very different story. Just hope you don’t come up against a tomb kings player with core allowance / 6-point no modifier archers 😛
That all is dependent on VERY ideal circumstances… if your unit get even ONE hex on them your plan fails.
Well maybe it’s just me, but Waywatchers are the best thing in the book in my eyes so I don’t see why every Wood Elf army isn’t running Rare/20 waywatchers. Two units of 15 at 2,500 is throwing out some pretty significant amounts of damage, and has the flexibility to be useful against pretty much any opponent. So you’d have redundancy if someone hits one of them with iceshard blizzard.
That said, what hex spells are you really afraid of? Most of the lores don’t have much that’s going to threaten this kind of avoidance list. Target magic missiles and BS/to-hit hexes with your dice and let them get all their silly buffs and debuffs off, because very few of them are going to bother you since you have no intention of ever seeing combat with them.
I’m not trying to say here that Wood Elves are a point-and-click army that’s just going to roll over the enemy with superior combat units. Play Dark Elves if that’s what you’re looking for. What I’m saying is that Wood Elves now have all the tools necessary to thoroughly dismantle all the “power builds” in the current tournament meta. Where they struggled before was dealing with high toughness, high armour targets…but they’ve got waywatchers and poison arrows for that now.
Level 4 with Acorn of the Ages, Elven Steed, Lore of Shadow
-Level 1 with Heavens, Dispel Scroll, Elven Steed
-BSB with Bow of Loren, Hail of Doom Arrow, light armor, shield, Asrai Spear, Elven Steed
-5 Glade Riders with Hagbane tips
-5 Glade Riders with Hagbane tips
-10 Dryads
-10 Glade Guard with musician, Hagbane tips
-10 Glade Guard with musician, Hagbane tips
-7 Scouts with musician, Hagbane tips
-7 Sisters of the Thorn with musician, standard, Lichebone Pendant
-7 Wild Riders with full command, shields
-21 Wildwood Rangers with full command, Gleaming Pennant
-10 Waywatchers
-10 Waywatchers
In some of the later posts it looks like he’s even thinking of dropping the Acorn, which I find quite interesting.
Either way, he’s running exactly the sort of list I envisioned being absolutely terrifying to face when I first saw the book. Obscene amounts of shooting, counters to every kind of foe, lots of mobility, everything is disposable. Unless you’re running another elf list with loads of shooting, and magic that can stack up to-hit penalties, you’re going to have a lot of trouble getting any points out of this list, whilst all the while bleeding points to his shooting.
Not sure I would call that an obscene amount of shooting…
I am still not seeing it. Any of those units taking a half decent magic missile, a charge from a flank, hell even with those 30 poison shots and 20 no-armor shots, a good sized horde army would walk through them. Even the way watchers would have a hard time dealing with a dragon or bloodthirster.
A bloodthirster means the demon player won’t have a level 4, so is going to have a tough time stopping that WE magic phase. But even still, that’s a 400-500 point model that’s going to have to kill 2-3 WE units to earn its points back, and whose only real protection is a 5+/5++. A few rounds of poisoned shots and he’s getting dragged down. Faster if withering gets off to bring him down to 5+ to-wound range (which with +2/+4 casting advantage isn’t unreasonable to expect).
Against a horde army you’ve got the sisters casting curse to stop you in your tracks. And even if you dispel that, you’re still going to have a tough time catching any of his units to score many victory points off him. Beyond the M9 character bunker I don’t think there’s a single unit in there over 200 points. The rate at which he’s killing your units with shooting is going to exceed the number of points you’ll get catching one or even two of those little units a turn. That’s 40 high-BS, armour-piercing shots those waywatchers are outputting every turn, plus a whack from the rest of the army. So what do you dispel? Withering or Curse?
This is what I mean when I say the strength of this book is hidden. Nothing on the book (other than waywatchers) screams to be taken. But taken all together you can build this mean little guerrilla force that is bleeding the enemy of points far faster than they can get them out of you.
The trouble is that it’s going to take a very skilled general to do it. You’re not going to win games at the list-building stage like many cookie-cutter Warriors of Chaos armies do. Lose a few too many units to poor placement and that’s curtains for you.
Jaded Gamercast 
What’s the difference between a wood elf and a trampoline? You take your shoes OFF to jump on a trampoline!
Thanks for the great episode, yes i do agree that Wood Elves are the “Worst Elves”, but they are still the worst out of 3 very good books so its not that bad.
I think people underestimate the new wood elves as they lost quite a bit of strength (the glade guard bow, forest spirits) and didn’t gain a Prowess, but the new options they gained make them more able to deal with many different armies.
Units like Waywatchers, Waystalkers, Glade Guard, Wildwood Rangers, Wild Riders, Sisters of the Thorn and Treemen (yes is still rate Treemen, i do have 4 of them after all) these are all very good, and in the case of the Waywatchers and Stalkers exceptional, units. Armies that have a High Armour Save and a low toughness need to think twice when facing wood elf armies because of all that anti armour, and Tomb Kings and Vamps really need to be wary of the Arrow of Kurnous and the Waystalker. I look forward to playing with my new and improved Wood Elves.
Cheers
Rex
I voted no, though really it should be a “no, so long as…”
Yeah, on the face dark elves and high elves are both stronger books. They both have lots of powerful options that quite OBVIOUSLY are strong and wreck face.
Wood elves don’t have a cauldron star or a banner of the world dragon. They don’t have a stand out monster or a standout arcane item that is going to break the meta. Their units are fragile and WILL NOT stand up to a fair fight. But when the fuck have wood elves EVER fought you in a fair fight? They danced around you firing their bows, then only charged in once you were weak enough to finish off. Grinding their big unit against your big unit was NEVER their style, so of course their units aren’t going to stand up to a mathhammer comparison.
What this book does is give wood elf generals from the last book all the tools they need to eviscerate foes in the current meta. It’s a book that the internet is going to ignore, that you will rarely see math-obsessed power gamers running. But the book has all the tools it needs to be a good sleeper army, and I suspect that in not too long we’ll start seeing some serious powerhouse wood elf generals placing high in major tournaments.
I would argue that there has never been a book that power games have ignored. 🙂
Also, keep in mind that everything you just said could just as easily be applied to the High Elves or the Dark Elves, and they could still do it better. The only thing that edges them out in the shooting phase is Waywatchers, but even still HE and DE have better supporting units.
Good luck hitting with dark shards though when you’re multishotting at long range through a forest 😛
My point, though, is that there’s a lot less “hidden filth” in the DE/HE books. Pretty much everything they have is rather straight-forward. Everything in the DE book except crossbows and bolt throwers wants to be in combat, and the High Elf book isn’t far behind. The first thing our resident Wood Elf player said when he looked at the new book was “cool, now I NEVER need to fight people.”
Think Shadow + sisters + waywatchers + no modifier/poison glade guard. Running a big horde of infantry? Cool now it’s movement 2 (miasma) and a third of it dies if it doesn’t stay still (curse). Demigryphs? Let’s see how well they fare against 30 archers who hit them on 3s, wound them on 3s (withering), and don’t allow armour saves. Got your level 4 in a skirmishing bunker behind your lines? Glade Guard still hit them on 3s, so not anymore. There’s poison for taking down frost phoenixes. Oh and that nifty BotWD white lion death star? Yeah it’s T1 (withering) now and waywatchers hit them on 3s and kill them on 2s. GLHF.
That’s why I don’t think this book is “worst elves.” In an objective mathhammer sense sure, but on the table I think it’s going to be a very different story. Just hope you don’t come up against a tomb kings player with core allowance / 6-point no modifier archers 😛
That all is dependent on VERY ideal circumstances… if your unit get even ONE hex on them your plan fails.
Well maybe it’s just me, but Waywatchers are the best thing in the book in my eyes so I don’t see why every Wood Elf army isn’t running Rare/20 waywatchers. Two units of 15 at 2,500 is throwing out some pretty significant amounts of damage, and has the flexibility to be useful against pretty much any opponent. So you’d have redundancy if someone hits one of them with iceshard blizzard.
That said, what hex spells are you really afraid of? Most of the lores don’t have much that’s going to threaten this kind of avoidance list. Target magic missiles and BS/to-hit hexes with your dice and let them get all their silly buffs and debuffs off, because very few of them are going to bother you since you have no intention of ever seeing combat with them.
I’m not trying to say here that Wood Elves are a point-and-click army that’s just going to roll over the enemy with superior combat units. Play Dark Elves if that’s what you’re looking for. What I’m saying is that Wood Elves now have all the tools necessary to thoroughly dismantle all the “power builds” in the current tournament meta. Where they struggled before was dealing with high toughness, high armour targets…but they’ve got waywatchers and poison arrows for that now.
There’s a guy on Asrai who has quite a number of games under his belt with the new book already. http://asrai.org/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=26264&start=75
Here’s what he’s running:
Level 4 with Acorn of the Ages, Elven Steed, Lore of Shadow
-Level 1 with Heavens, Dispel Scroll, Elven Steed
-BSB with Bow of Loren, Hail of Doom Arrow, light armor, shield, Asrai Spear, Elven Steed
-5 Glade Riders with Hagbane tips
-5 Glade Riders with Hagbane tips
-10 Dryads
-10 Glade Guard with musician, Hagbane tips
-10 Glade Guard with musician, Hagbane tips
-7 Scouts with musician, Hagbane tips
-7 Sisters of the Thorn with musician, standard, Lichebone Pendant
-7 Wild Riders with full command, shields
-21 Wildwood Rangers with full command, Gleaming Pennant
-10 Waywatchers
-10 Waywatchers
In some of the later posts it looks like he’s even thinking of dropping the Acorn, which I find quite interesting.
Either way, he’s running exactly the sort of list I envisioned being absolutely terrifying to face when I first saw the book. Obscene amounts of shooting, counters to every kind of foe, lots of mobility, everything is disposable. Unless you’re running another elf list with loads of shooting, and magic that can stack up to-hit penalties, you’re going to have a lot of trouble getting any points out of this list, whilst all the while bleeding points to his shooting.
Not sure I would call that an obscene amount of shooting…
I am still not seeing it. Any of those units taking a half decent magic missile, a charge from a flank, hell even with those 30 poison shots and 20 no-armor shots, a good sized horde army would walk through them. Even the way watchers would have a hard time dealing with a dragon or bloodthirster.
A bloodthirster means the demon player won’t have a level 4, so is going to have a tough time stopping that WE magic phase. But even still, that’s a 400-500 point model that’s going to have to kill 2-3 WE units to earn its points back, and whose only real protection is a 5+/5++. A few rounds of poisoned shots and he’s getting dragged down. Faster if withering gets off to bring him down to 5+ to-wound range (which with +2/+4 casting advantage isn’t unreasonable to expect).
Against a horde army you’ve got the sisters casting curse to stop you in your tracks. And even if you dispel that, you’re still going to have a tough time catching any of his units to score many victory points off him. Beyond the M9 character bunker I don’t think there’s a single unit in there over 200 points. The rate at which he’s killing your units with shooting is going to exceed the number of points you’ll get catching one or even two of those little units a turn. That’s 40 high-BS, armour-piercing shots those waywatchers are outputting every turn, plus a whack from the rest of the army. So what do you dispel? Withering or Curse?
This is what I mean when I say the strength of this book is hidden. Nothing on the book (other than waywatchers) screams to be taken. But taken all together you can build this mean little guerrilla force that is bleeding the enemy of points far faster than they can get them out of you.
The trouble is that it’s going to take a very skilled general to do it. You’re not going to win games at the list-building stage like many cookie-cutter Warriors of Chaos armies do. Lose a few too many units to poor placement and that’s curtains for you.