Warhammer/Tactics/8th Edition/Wood Elves

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Why Play Wood Elves

Wood Elves are one of, if not the only army in Warhammer Fantasy that lacks any sort of War Machines to root down their lines and hold them in a single spot. They're slowest units have movement 5, and most move much much faster. The name of their game is speed and maneuverability. By the end of turn 2 you can be behind the enemy lines, ready to unleash deadly co-ordinated flank charges, and against slower armies you can quite simply run circles around your enemies.

Though regarded as some of the best archers in the game, due to their strength 4 short range shots, the wood elves' greatest strength is not in their shooting. They are formidable in combat but lack staying power. You will need to use your maneuverability to ensure that you win the first combat resolution. If the elves get bogged down, their low toughness means they will be hacked to pieces.

Lastly, their magic is not the most powerful, but with forest spirits and units such as treekin bolstering their lines, regenerative life or athel loren magic can give some monsters heavy staying power to tie up more valuable and deadly enemy units, leaving the majority of the army free to maneuver at will and pick off the weaker enemy units.

The Wood Elves require perhaps the most skill and nuance to play well, but this directly translates into them also being one of the most rewarding armies to play.

Plus they're bad ass vengeful guardians of the forest, so that's pretty cool too.

Unit Analysis

Lords & Heroes

Named Characters

Note: Under the current edition, named characters tend to be overpriced; you can pretty easily emulate most named characters from scratch and save yourself some points. That said, a few named characters do have abilities and wargear or wargear combos unique to them, so if you absolutely need to have them, go ahead. Just make sure you're really getting your points worth.

Generic Characters

Note: While named characters are judged against their generic counterparts, generic characters are examined based on their role in your army.

Lords

Highborn - Generic combat character/general, you can make him a member of any of the Kindreds, where they basically become a tougher unit leader. Generally speaking Highborn are only good if tooled for a specific role only and will suck outside of that niche. Has good leadership though, but lots of Forest Spirit units in the army makes that moot, its impossible to play an elf only list without him. Of all the Kindreds, Eternal is the best for a Lord on foot geared for hand to hand, not saying this is really bad, but its not exactly the optimal choice. Waywatcher grants them scouting if you feel your general should be doing that. Wardancer is bad if he's meant to be the General as Wardancers lack a certain "armour" thing on their bodies. Wild is pretty good if you want you highborn to charge shit down, it has less drawbacks. On the other hand, getting a Highborn with Alter is fun as to run, but keep cheaps so you can have an actual general to do all the leading and boss stuff. Probably best to leave Kindreds off unless you want to spend the points on over-compensating a given role for him. Spites would be good if they didn't count to magic item allowance and guess what... they do. Only a few Spites are ever going to be used, and mostly for niche roles, they cost too much for some effects, especially because they chew into reliable and proven magic items. Good cost but GW could probably have cut off 25-30 points from his base cost without pushing it into a unfairness.

Spellweaver - Generic heavy magic character. Nothing really to be said other than sensible armed for wizard, but that doesn't mean they should be given magic arrows or bows. The Spellweaver is handy to spam the Treesinger spell, which you will be doing in order to move around quickly with cover. Pretty much your magic is geared around movement shenanigans and support, except your nuke spell, its actually painful to read it and compare it to other lores. Don't cast it on unengaged units, us it to buff and win combats, the movement boost granted to unengaged units is pretty unreliable, prevents shooting (which is really bad for an army that has a focus on shooting on the run) and forces you to attack the closest tarpit rather than the juicy warmachine crews or exposed character. The Spelweaver also demands a hefty price tag comapared to the Highborn.

Treeman Ancient - In Athel Lorien beat sticks are the size of trees. This guy is fairly tough, except if there is flammable attacks where you pretty much should just remove the model from the table instead of rolling to wound. Unfortunately can only take Spites, which is like saying "here is a nice big fuck you to all those Chaos assholes, but he is balanced by a glaring weakness and we don't want you the chance to compensate or increase his effectiveness in any of his roles". Causes Terror because its a fucking rapist tree, one that is immune to psychology and has 3+ Scaly Skin and small ward save. His price tag is fairly high without any upgrades, honestly if they dropped the cost it wouldn't be so bad, but the lack of options really cripples it, until Spites get fixed he really lacks in all areas, especially because you can only have one of each spite. Try to avoid, a highborn with Alter is more useful and funnier.

Heroes

Noble - Generic Hero tier combat character. When upgraded to BSB he loses all weapons and can only take a magic banner or a kindred thanks to poor writing/understanding of the game. BSB is pretty good for keeping Elves in line. Can join a Kindred, its a better deal here. Can take the standard allowance of magic items and Spites if you like suck. Spites may or may not count to the limit with respect to BSB magic items.

Core Units

In terms of points your core units are expensive. Sadly for you they're also the cheapest units you have access to. Welcome to the exciting world of the glass cannon.

Glade Guard - When used well with terrain features can be a persistent thorn in your enemies side, and a distraction. Left out in the open they'll get shot to pieces or slaughtered in combat, but position them in a woods or behind a wall and they will be a headache for your enemies. At close range (15") their shots become strength 4.

Glade Riders - Overpriced fast calvery. They're maneuverability is great, but they only have strength 3 shooting and are mediocre combat. Avoid.

Drayds - Fear causing, immune to pysch, good in combat. Never leave home without your trusty drayds.

Eternal Guard - Bow-less elves, that are "just okay" in close combat. Perhaps you can bunker a wizard in them? They're kind of useless in 8th edition.

Special Units

War Dancers - Light melee infantry, has sheer speed but suffers from lack of armour to counter the presence of any ranged attack at all. Does get a neat ward save, and can smash most infantry units under 20 models, using the dances properly is essential to getting them to work properly for you, although that mostly comes down to spamming the +1A dance as much as possible. Unfortunately they're a little pricey. Hopefully the new book will cut their cost a bit and maybe do something to fix that vulnerability to arrows. Also you can upgrade your Highborn/Noble General to be one of these, and thus prove you are a retard.

Building Your Army

Army Composition

A few principles of the wood elves army -

They're okay at shooting, but not amazing. However get those shots in. They won't win the game but they'll help.

Maneuverability is your biggest strength. Use this. Fight on your terms, and don't fight when you don't want to.

Use well timed charges, and well placed charges to win combats. Run down the survivors, then bound out of reach.

It's an uphill battle with the wood elves. good luck!