Editing Warhammer/Tactics/8th Edition/Wood Elves (section)

==Equipping Your Army==

'''Asrai Bow''': Just like an ordinary Longbow. 30" range, but now comes with AP.

'''Asrai Spear''': Follows the same rules as regular spears, except for having AP.

Basicly, all Wood Elf spears and bows have AP. Because inch-thick armor is of little use when there's an arrow sticking out of your eye and a spear in your throat.

===Magic Items===

No more Spites, no more Kindreds. Matt Ward, after having given High Elves a meta changing item and Dark elves at least some decent ones, he decided to balance out his previous mistakes by not giving Wood Elves any good items. He even made sure to prevent broken combos this time.  It's especially surprising as Wood Elves are reputed to be Matt Ward's favourite elf faction.

'''The Spirit Sword:''' 85 points for ignoring armour saves (as if Wood Elves didn't have enough of this already), and if you cause an unsaved wound on a character/champion/monster, you and your foe both take a leadership test. For each point you beat your opponent by, it causes a wound. If you lose the test nothing happens(Though it can hurt the wielder if you want to use the more amusing 6th ed rules for the sword). I guess it is neat and will kill monsters like hell, but this weapon is overpriced and relies on you hitting/wounding your target. Rely on the rulebook's magic items instead.

'''Daith's Reaper:''' This weapon would be amazing for almost any race but Wood Elves. For 50pts you can reroll to hit and to wound and force your opponent to reroll successful armour saves. Considering you can only take this on a hero who is likely to get to hit rerolls from ASF and that 8th favours ward saves rather than armour saves, this weapon is only slightly better than useless. Buying great weapon or sword of +1 str wound be a far better/cheaper alternative.

'''The Bow of Loren:''' For 20 points you get a bow that fires your character's attacks +1 shots. You can use it on the Waystalker to get 2, armour ignoring, sniping shots or on the Glade Lord to fire 5 bs7 shots. This can actually be increased further through augment magic that increases attacks (lore of beasts or lore of light). Note that these are Multiple Shots (so -1 to hit and can't stack with Waystalker multiple shots and don't get any bonus attacks from extra hand weapon). The best that can be said about this bow is that it is properly priced. All other races ranged magic items aren't though...

'''Helm of the Hunt:''' For 20pts you get a dragon helm which instead of giving you a 2++ vs flaming attacks, gives you the devastating charge special rule and +1 ws on the charge. Cute I guess for Wood Elves but is it really worth it? Basically, it allows you to make a Wild Rider Noble from older editions (especially with Wild Riders wearing noticeable horned helms now). Your elven characters already have plenty of WS (unless you plan on challenging), so you pay 20 points for +1 armor and Devastating Charge. To really get the points out of this, you much charge more than once! Otherwise, Dragonhelm and Potion of Foolhardiness get the same job done +Immune to Psychology and 2++ vs fire and costs 5 points less. If you are using a mundane shield, get Enchanted Shield and Potion of Foolhardiness instead and save 7-8 more points.

'''Acorns of Ages:''' This is the item that Wood Elves have been waiting for. For 100pts you get d3 forests in addition to the starting one, which all have to be the same type and are deployed like drop pods, since they scatter but can't land on other terrain. Lots of tactics are circulating around this item, Drycha/Moonstone of Hidden Ways for teleporting units or almost deep striking treemen. See Talk page for tactics and stuff. As for the item - if nothing else, it's fluffy. The problem is only a couple lords even have the points to carry the thing, and it then leaves them with no points for anything else. Unless your strategy depends on having many forests (Drycha, Moonstone of Hidden ways), it is probably better to pass on this one.

'''Moonstone of Hidden Ways:''' This item's potential power is immense, while it's actual usefulness is varied. For 40pts you can teleport your unit at the end of a movement phase, from one forest to another. The only restriction on what can be teleported is whether it can fit wholly inside the forest. The "forest walking" unit can't be placed in another forest that is too small and counts as having marched. While interesting this item makes you a sitting duck for 1 turn and either relies on the luck of the terrain deployment table or the Acorns of Ages. Buy another gimmick.

'''Hail of the Doom Arrow:''' If only this item was 5 points cheaper so Waystalkers could take it (This does prevent the abuse from being able to hail of the doom arrow snipe combo - <strike>almost</strike> guaranteed dead wizard. Seems like it could have been fixed better with a 'cannot be used in conjunction with the sniper special rule' as opposed to just making it too expensive to take). For 30pts, you get a 1 use str 4 armour piercing arrow that causes 3d6 hits. Some people swear by these things since they can instantly mince lightly armoured units though there are dissenting opinions. Still it is arguably the best magic item Wood Elves have. Sadly, Asyndi's Bane was removed as a magic item, so you can no longer use the HoDA to take out an enemy unit and the guy who fired the arrow in the same turn.

'''Calaingor's Stave:''' Such a depressing item. For 20 points you get the privilege of swapping a spell for Tree Singing. Tree Singing is cast on a 8+ now and can move an empty forest d6+1 inches, which is not much more than the forest moves by being accidentally bumped. If the forest is partially occupied, then instead you can deal 2d6 str4 hits on an enemy unit that is at least partially within the forest. You can improve the spell so that, when cast on a 16+ it affects all forests within 12". If the spell could be cast more than once, was given as an additional spell, had a lore attribute, could be cast on all forests on the board instead of those within 12", cast on a 4+, to name a multitude of reasons, then it would be worth taking. Otherwise, unless you wish to move the destination forest of the moonstone of hidden way's unit or Drycha's helpers, it is the worst magic item in the game. If you really want your eternal guard to hit in an extra rank, its usually easier to move yourself to the forest than to move the forest to you.

''Alternate take:'' If you're feeling lazy (or cheeky) and you have a wizard who can flit around with her entourage of deepwood witches, then you may consider sealing off a flank with this item and a blood wood. This would mean making an army that doesn't mind not having a guaranteed forest but that could be done pretty easily. This gimmick may only work once but a 3d6 s4 magic missile on an 8+ is nothing to scoff at and while most units would quake in fear at this prospect, some '''opponents''' might not notice the threat until it's too late. I know many people who would be quicker to throw all their dispel dice at Throne of Vines on reputation alone. Watch them cry when you gamble with your last 3 dice in the magic phase--tree sing a unit to shreds and then watch the blood forest walk maximum distance and clip their unit only for you to cast Awakening of the wood on a single die for another 3d6 S4 hits.

'''The Banner of the Eternal Queen:''' For twice the cost of the Banner of the World Dragon, this banner provides Magic Resistance 3 and for 1 turn the ability to be unbreakable. No thanks. The traditional overpriced banner does not fail to disappoint me even if you don't compare it to the Banner of the World Dragon. 

'''The Banner of the Hunter King:''' Another banner which gives to it's unit vanguard and, that allows you to reroll the first failed charge of the game for 75pts. Dwarfs get these rules for 35pts and 15pts respectively. <s>Also almost everything that can take this banner has Vanguard already.</s> As fast cavalry gain Vanguard, you can mount your BSB on an elven steed for only 10 points if you want to move him for free at the start of the fight. Besides, most of your non-fast-cavalry units don't want to move close to the enemy. Competes with Calaingor's Staff for being the worst magic item ever. Well, at least Calaingor's staff only costs 20 points where this costs 75. Worst magic (or even mundane) item ever.

====Enchanted Arrows====

(Note, all arrows have AP and volleyfire, 30 inch range). All of these are available to Glade Guard, Deepwood Scouts, Glade Riders, Glade Lords and Glade Captains.
They replace the profile of regular bows wielded by models and count as magical attacks. <s>Note, that until we get a FAQ, they are ''not'' Asrai Longbows and prevent using Hail of Doom Arrows!</s> The enchanted arrows are Enchanted Items which do not prevent you from holding a second Enchanted item. As such they are NOT weapons, and do not prevent you from using the HODA. The WE book specifically says "Each type of enchanted arrow replaced the profile of the Asrai longbow with the one shown in its entry." <s>In other words, you don't have asrai longbow anymore, you have Arcane Bodkins, Starfire Shafts, Hagbane Tips, Swiftshiver Shards, Moonfire shot, or Trueflight Arrows instead. This would technically disable HoDA even though you are replacing the bow with arrows.</s> Correction: the profile of the bow is replaced, not the bow itself. "if a model has enchanted arrows, he must use them when shooting with an Asrai Longbow." The model still has the bow, which means it can still use HoDA.

Aditional Note: Some players may argue that because magic arrows are magic items, you cannot bring multiple units with the same arrow due to the Unique rule. Yes, they will actually argue that you can take a unit of 20 with hagbane tips but not 2 units of 10 because the arrows are unique. However, the Unique rule says you can only bring "one of each" (or in other words, one model with the item) in your entire army unless otherwise stated. Since these arrows come as an upgrade to an entire unit, this means that you are able to bring more than one model with that magic arrow and therefore the arrow is not Unique. If your opponent says that it has to clearly state you may take more than one of each arrow, point out that it clearly states that an entire unit (aka more than one model) may be upgraded to include the arrow. So, do not let those jealous bowmen (it would be a disgrace to a noble Wood Elf to call those lesser beings archers) of other armies try to limit your magic arrows!

'''Arcane Bodkins:''' 5 pts per model, confers ap -3 instead of normal armour piercing. Expensive for what they do. I prefer to do more wounds than reduce armour saves but these arrows kill cavalry like nobody's business.  All the same, if your plan is to screw over enemy armour, just use Waywatchers instead. For three more points waywatchers can spite that guy with a 1+ re-rollable armour save while the arcane bodkins have a 50/50 chance of being saved. And they can also fuck up light infantry like nobody's business, if no heavy cavalry presents itself.

'''Hagbane Tips:''' 3 points per model, confers poison attacks. Amazing. This will probably be your go-to magic arrow, since wood elves have troubles vs monsters or anything with high toughness since they have S3. It is nice to have Skink-like firepower on the move at 30" (With BS4+ throughout <s>most</s> ALL of the shooting units, your problems will probably lie in wounding. Might as well turn those 6's to hit into wounds, and save yourself the possibility of connecting a hit that won't wound anything).

'''Trueflight Arrows:''' 3 points per model, confers no penalty to shooting whatever you do. This is probably going to be the second most used arrow. Best taken on your Glade Guard as they will suffer the most penalties (move and shoot, long range, volley fire, etc.). These should be your first choice against Skaven and their shenanigans. As these only help you hit when WE issue is wounding, they are best used in combination with magic that either reduces toughness (death or shadow) or gives +1 to wound (fire).
*''As of now there are many opinions about the merits of these arrows which should be shared on the talk page. 

'''Moonfire Arrows:''' 4 points, confers flaming and +1 to wound versus Forces of Order. Great against warmachines, which almost all Forces of Order have. BUT against war machines, poison is still better (and cheaper) unless buffed by magic. Still, in addition to putting a hurt on those war machines, this arrow can also screw with any lore of life wizards (which many Forces of Order armies have access to) that thought they'd be using that signature spell. Especially if brought in as a surprise on scouts/ambushers (which is where you want them anyway to reach those war machines quickly).

'''Starfire Arrows:'''  4 points per model confers flaming and +1 to wound versus Forces of Destruction. Great against monsters and repeater bolt throwers. The better choice of the "...fire Arrows" duo as almost everything with Regen in the game is from a Forces of Destruction army. If you buy a unit of 10-12 of this instead of the flaming banner you can make OK monster hunters out of them. If you want, bring a small number of archers with flaming arrows and a larger poison arrow unit if you want to use that poison without the pesky regeneration saves. Alternatively, since enchanted arrows are not a magic weapon, they can still benefit from the Banner of Eternal Flame. Hagbane Tips + BoEF kills regenerating/flammable monsters like no one's business. Just watch out for characters with Dragonbane Gem or Dragonhelm.

'''Swiftshiver Shards:''' 4 points per model confers multiple shot, making your Glade Guards into Dark Elf repeater crossbowmen. Interesting, but Waywatchers have this basic and do this better than any of the other unit. One recommendation is to fill your core with a big block of swiftshiver shard glade guard (fun to say) and then buff them with hand of glory from the high magic. Your swiftshiver shard glade guard should eviscerate anything that is not protected by the high elf banner of game breaking. Use Arcane Unforging if you can to destroy that banner and drink your High Elf opponent's tears when they realize they might actually have to use strategy to win for once.