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

==Army Composition & Tactics==

Build your tactics around your army.
Basically Wood Elves need to ambush, pick their fights carefully, and throw multiple units into every combat they fight if they want to win. One unit on its own is not going anywhere unless it's Wild Riders vs a monster or if the unit is charging the enemies flanks or rear.

Currently, there are four main methods of building your army:

*A) '''Shooty army.'''
**Don't get charged and keep on shooting. Circle around your foes, slow them down, and don't be afraid to sacrifice a unit if it saves your army.

*B) '''Fast combat army.'''
**You could take an entire horse army. Very hard to use but pays great dividends. This army should always get to choose when and how it fights. Abuse the Wood Elves' superior movement to ridiculous levels.

*C) '''Infantry army.'''
**Units of 5 or 6 Treekin have high Strength and Toughness, multiple wounds, good weapons skill and nearly 20 attacks per turn. Eternal Guard units are expensive but good for holding characters and is now stubborn even without a glade captain or lord. The enemy will need to kill everyone, so they are not going anywhere for some turns. However, without serious magical buffing, this army will die to anything stronger than a stiff breeze. 

*D) '''Hybrid army.'''
**A mix of any of the above.


'''Ambush of the Worldroots'''


''To once again clarify, for future reference, the precise wording of the rule is "'''This forest is not mysterious terrain - declare it's type when you place it'''"

''With "Mysterious" being a fancy word for "Type of your choice".''


*The most obvious tactic for this is to chuck one in the middle of your Glade Guard. However, for an interesting option, to cater towards more close combat orientated armies, you can stick it between your big unit of Eternal Guard, etc and the most likely enemy deployment to mitigate a lot of return shots and hopefully force a fight in the woods. Or simply hamper the enemies movement towards you, forcing them to trudge through the forest or having to split around it

*Pick a Venom Thicket since your entire army (except Eagles) ignores Forest DT tests, but do notice that a Venom Thicket won't grant Poisoned Attacks to your shooting attacks. The rulebook specifically states that Poisoned Attacks from Venom Thicket only applies to close combat attacks.

*Abyssal Wood imposes no penalties and serves as a perfect place to station your Glade Guard, Eternal Guard or Wildwood Rangers. Fear will grant them an edge in melee (which all WE badly need), and luring an enemy far enough into the Abyssal Wood will give it Fear as well - directly empowering your Rangers when hacking them. An Abyssal Wood with a bunch of Rangers stationed in it (with just enough space to accommodate an enemy unit) can be quite effective in a choke-point.

*The other woods should NEVER be considered for two reasons: 
**1) Strider only stops Dangerous Terrain checks, so Abyssal Wood/Venom Thicket are the only forests you can survive in while still doing damage to your enemies.
**2) You don't really want to use your guaranteed forest as barrier. You want to stand in it and gain bonuses distilled from HElf and DElf tears.



'''Tips'''

''Many of these tips might seem redundant, but one extra reminder is better than forgetting a small detail that might help you later ''


*With the introduction of Enchanted Arrows and generally improved shooting units, Wood Elves favour a mix between Shooting and Fast Combat armies. As a general rule, avoid putting any more points into core than necessary, always take a Level 4 wizard, 2 Great Eagles, some Waywatchers, and try to avoid any foot based combat unit. This is not to say that you should never take footsloggers, but most of your units will have neither the toughness nor the saves to match other armies.


*All of your army has M5 or more. Use this maneuverability to it's utmost to ensure that you stay alive and pick your fights with care.


*Remember that units fighting in forests lose their steadfast rule (this goes for your units as well). This could make a difference when fighting big blocks of Skavenslaves or other similar units that relies on keeping your units tied up until help arrives. Eternal Guards (Stubborn LD9) can shine here, even in relative few numbers. It should also be noted that skirmishers gain stubborn in forests.


*Beware of Monsters or units with high toughness! Unless you have units with Poisoned Attacks, Wild Riders (S5 on the charge), magically buffed units (result being S5 or higher), or Wildwood Rangers, it's gonna be difficult to wound most of the time when you're in combat. Almost every other Army has access to Warmachines to pick off your Treemen/Treeman Ancients, but you won't have the same luxury.


*[[DISTRACTION CARNIFEX|DISTRACTION FAERIE]]: You need at least one of these. Either a Treeman, a Forest Dragon or some Waywatcher. Why? Because you need something that is gonna rob your enemy of his reason and make all his Empire/Skaven/Bolt Throwers/Leadbelchers warmachines go "''Huuuurr... Dat's a purdy unit yoo's got there mate... Be a real shame if sumfink hap'n to it, roight?'', so that the rest of your army survives and gets into position. 
**''Bear in mind that against Dwarfs this will be less of a distraction and more 220 points of free victory points for their Flaming Cannon.


*Having trouble filling those pesky core points and don't want to give the enemy a 220 point treeman to knock down with cannons? Glade Riders can deal with warmachines after just a few rounds due to their Ambusher rule. Combine with poison arrows to really specialize in WM hunting. Since they can't charge the turn they enter, shoot at one machine and charge remaining machines the following turn. Not terribly reliable since poor rolls can delay your ambushers, but usually an amazing core unit solution to some of the only things that might challange the Wood Elves' superiority in the shooting phase.


*What's that? Having trouble with High Elves and their ''Banner of The World Dragon'' (aka the banner of game breaking) on a beefy cav unit you say? Luckily you do have a (good) ranged unit that isn't magical. Waywatchers. Use them to thin the banner unit. If the banner is on a BSB, hope you brought a Waystalker or two. Normally suggesting you change your army to deal with one magic item completely sucks. Luckily, Waywatchers are pretty good anyway, so they can still do stuff if the banner doesn't show up or is already dealt with.


*Seriously consider the ''Recipe for Success''
**You will need the following:
***1) 5 Wild Riders
***2) 1 Forest
***3) Flank Charge on the Enemy

Mix it all together, add command, a War Banner if you like it thick and put it in the oven for about 1 Magic and 1 Shooting Phase at 200 and ''voilà'': 16 Fear-causing ASF S5 AP attacks (reroll 1s to wound) + 10 S4 attacks with no enemy parry saves, supporting attacks or step up (so Always Strikes First actually helps you kill the enemy before they kill you. Also note that flanking does not remove steadfast, so unless you get your enemy within the forest, they may not run as easily). The cost? 160-195 points. (Add more Wild Riders to really hurt those 40+ man units). Do watch out for ranged fire though, Wild Riders are a glass cannon and with only 5, you can't really afford to lose any.

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[[Category:Warhammer/Tactics]]