Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Wood Elves

This is the tactica for the Total War: Warhammer version of the Wood Elves.

Why Play Wood Elves

You have a love of nature and really want to share it with others. Namely by siccing very angry trees and pole-portioned dendrophiles on the other civilizations of the world.

Pros

• Sheer Speed - The majority of your army is quite fast. Even the most basic infantry available to you, Eternal Guards, will outpace a significant portion of the footsoldiers available to most other armies. You'll be able to dance around the plodding pace of slower armies like the dwarves Dwarfs _{(that's a grudgin')} or lizardmen. Even fast races such as Beastmen will have trouble keeping up with your mounted units and flying monsters.
• Excellent Missile Infantry - The Wood Elves have an abundance of fantastic missile units. Ranged infantry, cavalry, fliers, lords, heroes with access to dedicated poison, anti-armor, magic or rapid fire missiles gives you immense flexibility against any threats you may face. With the new DLC, the Wood Elves have perhaps the single best ranged Legendary Lord(s) in the game in the form of the Sisters of Twilight, who are capable of not only dealing heavy single target damage but also horde clearing shots from their unique bows.
• Savage Melee Combatants - Wood Elves have access to some pretty heavy-hitting, if squishy infantry options that can scythe through hordes like lawnmowers. Additionally, Wild Riders are capable of dealing some of the most damaging charges in the game thanks to their immense charge bonus. The new Great Stag Knight unit hits even harder on the charge, and moves even faster.

Cons

• Fragile - The Wood Elves are debatably the frailest overall faction in the game. A few niche units like the Tree Kin or Treemen can hold their own in prolonged fights, but the rest of your army will wither away in a sustained assault. A successful Wood Elf army must strike with surgical precision and do so swiftly and from afar. Because of this constant skirmishing, Wood Elves are arguably the most difficult race to play, as they require the most micromanagement on the battlefield.
• Absent Artillery - Though you have plenty of long-ranged missile units to choose from, you have no dedicated artillery platforms. This isn't a major issue primarily because you have so many archers that can fill every role the artillery would perform, but you will lack a notable source of hard-hitting burst damage. This is only getting worse in campaign with the Twisted and the Twilight's changes to Wood Elf hero skills, now only the Lords can buff your missile units range meaning no more 300 range Waywalker cheese, it was fun while it lasted. Use the Arrow of Kuronous ability instead of Artillery, with a range of 600 it's quite capable of sniping out enemy artillery and lords before you get close.
• Limited Roster - Wood Elves have fewer unit choices than a number of other playable factions. This limits your army composition into fairly predictable builds that does nothing for players looking for adaptable playstyles. It also means your faction has a number of fairly obvious weaknesses, such as the aforementioned fragility and lack of artillery but also a vulnerability to heavy cavalry and fire damage. These weaknesses can be exploited by your opponent.
• DLC Faction - In order to play the Wood Elves at all, you need to buy at least one of the two optional DLC packs featuring them. "Realm of the Wood Elves", their initial release, is DLC for the first Total War: Warhammer game. "The Twisted and the Twilight", a lord pack for Total War: Warhammer II, will allow players of the second game a way to play them if they don't own both the original game and the original DLC, but some of the roster will be somewhat limited (more so than it already is). Regardless, if you want to have the whole faction available to play, you'll need to purchase two full price games and two separate DLC packs in order to access everything. If that's not premium content, I don't know what is.

Universal Trait

Wood Elves don't really have much in the way of extra abilities or perks, there is one particular thing they have going for them though:

• Hide (Forest) - What did you expect? They're Wood Elves. Hell, some of their units are literally just tree people. The only units in the entire elven roster who can't hide in forests are the Great Eagle, Hawk Riders and Forest Dragon.

Lords

You have a pretty small selection of lords, the smallest out of every other faction in fact. Two of each, and you'll almost never pick any of the generic ones.

Legendary Lords

• Orion - Orion is a hybrid ranged/melee beatstick who specializes against infantry. At a distance, he's one of the best ranged lords in the game and deals hefty anti-armor damage, perfect for sniping large monsters and individual lords/heroes. He's also blisteringly fast for a foot lord and can even keep pace with some of the slower cavalry found in other armies. This pairs well with his impressive melee attack and charge bonuses; it's a common tactic to skirmish at range with a few well timed missiles to then follow up with a charge. Though he's not a caster, Orion also has access to a powerful bound vortex spell, Hounds of Orion, which will easily burn through most (elite) infantry when the burst damage is needed. All in all, a solid, well rounded lord that you can't go wrong with.

• Durthu - Everyone's favorite genocidal tree (no, not that one) is your best dedicated duelist. In a similar vein to Orion, Durthu is a hybrid lord who has access to the lore of beasts; a surprisingly useful set of supporting or offensive spells that can turn either himself or supporting treekin into terrifying combat monsters that will deal death to many a foe. As a massive monster, Durthu can wade through infantry and cavalry with relative ease and can go root-to-toe with a majority of the single-entity monsters in the game. Unfortunately, this presents a set of notable drawbacks for Durthu. First, as a giant monster, Durthu is particularly vulnerable to both anti-armor weaponry and anti-large weaponry. This size also makes him an easy target to missile fire. Secondly, he's also vulnerable to fire damage, something something many factions have relatively easy access to. If caught in a crossfire of several such tools, Durthu will melt away with frightening quickness, so you'll need to take extra care and support him with life magic should he get stuck in.

• Sisters of Twilight Naestra and Arahan (DLC) - These two ladies are collectively the only true-blooded elf Legendary Lord available to the Wood Elves. They are exclusively mounted on either a Great Eagle or a Forest Dragon (you'll almost always want them on a Forest Dragon for obvious reasons) and function best as a dedicated ranged unit. They do have decent combat stats, particularly when on the dragon, but they'll almost always lose against any other dedicated duelist unit or character worth their weight in gold.

• Drycha (FLC) Everyone's favorite genocidal tree (no, not that one) returns as a "free" bonus Legendary Lord for Mortal Empires exclusively. Like her Branchwraith kin, Drycha is a hybrid melee combatant and spellcaster who can actually hold her own in combat if properly supported, but she will certainly not win any one-on-one duels with any characters with an actual melee statline. Unlike her generic sisters, Drycha is a purestrain Lore of Shadows caster and as such is a shockingly vicious blob blender. As far as unique abilities go, Drycha brings two things to the table; she can summon a unit of (Malevolent) Dryads up to two times per battle and she provides a progressively more potent AoE buff that increases the melee attack of fellow Treekin units the lower her health is. Combined with the Frenzy ability found on a lot of her campaign unique units, this can be a particularly nasty combination that allows her and her angry trees to carve through quite a lot of the squishy, meaty competition. Sadly, as mentioned, she is exclusive to the Mortal Empires campaign and so likely won't be seeing much time in the spotlight.

Generic Lords

• Glade Lord - Your generic elf dude/dudette, glade lords are flexible and very customizable lords who can lead from the front or afar. They are specialized duelists at heart and will excel at hunting enemy lords/heroes if you can separate them from their armies but, unlike Durthu, tend to be vulnerable to getting tied down by hordes of enemies. Normally your cheapest lord, you can invest in a steed/eagle to maximize their mobility (take the steed if you want to utilize forest terrain) or place them atop a Forest Dragon to allow them to fight a much wider selection of enemies.

• Ancient Treeman - Ancient treemen function somewhat like Durthu (understandably) in that they are hybrid lords with respectable melee damage output and access to a supplementary lore of magic. However, unlike Durthu, the regular ancient treeman has access to the significantly more useful lore of life. This makes them fantastic centerpieces for a treeman-style/focused army who can hold their own far more effectively than your spellsingers, but this comes with the same inconveniences plaguing Durthu. As a large, flammable monster, treemen are very weak to flamming attacks, anti-armor attacks and anti-large attacks. Even if he's healing himself, he can and absolutely will melt quite quickly if focused down (and believe me, he will be focused). You will absolutely need additional screening units to help protect him in combat.

• Spellweaver (DLC) - Caster ladies who can strait up lead your armies into battle, letting you save your hero slots for something else, if you so wish. In a manner similar to the High Elves, the Spell Weavers have access to a much wider variety of magic lores than their lesser variants (and by that, I mean they get two more schools). Otherwise, they're virtually identical to their sisters.
  • Life Spellweaver - Virtually identical to your Life Spellsinger, only large and in charge.
  • Beasts Spellweaver - Virtually identical to your Beasts Spellsinger, only large and in charge.
  • Shadows Spellweaver - Virtually identical to your Shadows Spellsinger, only large and in charge.
  • Dark Spellweaver - Now we're getting somewhere new. An offensive discipline, the Lore of Dark Magic provides some solid anti-lord/hero spells via Doombolt and Soul Stealer while also providing some decent anti-infantry spells in Chillwind and Blade Wind. Frankly, not a bad pick at all.
  • High Spellweaver - This Spellweaver got a little too into the 'shrooms and learned a whole new lore of magic. With a little bit of everything, the High Spellweaver can provide a bit of healing support, single target damage, AoE damage and can even trap/damage flying units with a cast or two of Tempest. To be frank, a lot of what she can do is overshadowed by her sisters, so you'll probably want to pick one of them if you want offensive or supportive magic.

Heroes

You have one (two for ME) Legendary hero and three flavors of generic heroes, each with their own uses.

Legendary Heroes

• Ariel (DLC) -

• Coeddil (DLC FLC) - A little treat that CA didn't really feel like advertising, Coeddil makes a surprise appearance as a Legendary Hero available in Drycha's Mortal Empire campaign. And only in that campaign. Befitting his psychopathic hatred for all things not made of bark, Coeddil is an absolute melee menace who constantly saps nearby enemy unit's health while giving all allied nearby a minor melee buff. If that wasn't enough, Coeddil is unbreakable and will stay in the fight until the bitter end.

Generic Heroes

• Branchwraith - If ever there could only be a single unit that could be defined as a "hybrid", branchwraiths would be strong contenders for the title. Not only are they capable melee fighters in their own right, but they have access to a variety of handpicked spells from both the lore of life and lore of shadows. This gives them equal measure of frontline support and damage. Penumbral Pendulum gives you a strong sweeping wind spell that excels at softening harder units for your Wardancers and Rangers. Their additional access to earthblood gives them a cheap multi-target heal that, when paired with Shield of Thorns, will make your frontline units extremely resilient for a brief period of time.

• Waystalker - These guys are lord/hero hunters, pretty much strictly designed and specialized for that singular purpose. They can easily vanish from your foe's view thanks to their Master Ambusher ability which, combined with their speed, also allows them to easily kite footlords while blasting them with arrows. A few limited use abilities, like the Arrow of Kurnous, can allow them to deal decent damage and disrupt infantry in a pinch. It can also be reserved for sniping and destroying artillery pieces. Despite being built to hunt characters, Waystalkers are actually only decent melee combatants and will falter against melee-focused foot lords. Only send them in if they're completely out of ammo and/or properly supported by reinforcements.

• Spellsinger - Your cheap, dedicated mages. Spellsingers, like the purestrain generic mages of other factions, only exist to cast spells and nothing more. Keep these gals behind your front lines and out of harms way if you want their support to last you the battle. If you can spare the coin, consider placing them on elven steeds or unicorns so that they can quickly respond to changing conditions on the battlefield and quickly escape should enemies come for them. You have three flavors to choose from:
  • Beasts Spellsinger - A dedicated vector for the mixed lore of beasts, spellsingers of this category are ideal for supporting fellow elves/trees with buffs while contributing occasional bursts of AoE damage. A spare flock of doom can do decent work to clusters of infantry, though you'll get better AoE damage going with a shadows spellsinger. The spellsinger variant of Transformation of Kadon received a fluffy nerf; instead of summoning a feral manticore, now it summons eagles. Eagles are dramatically inferior to the manticore, but they can still be summoned to provide a surprise flank or to tie down enemy artillery in a pinch.
  • Life Spellsinger - Your cheapest source for lore of life spells. All in all, you really can't go wrong with her; healing magic is invaluable and can absolutely mean the difference between a winning/losing engagement on the field. You'll get a lot of mileage out of her if you pair her with treemen/forest dragons.
  • Shadows Spellsinger - The lore of shadows is your most offensive choice for your spellsingers, and it's not a bad one. Your two primary offensive spells, the Penumbral Pendulum and the Pit of Shades both deal impressive AoE damage and thus specialize in clearing out armored frontlines. The Pit of Shades also holds the distinct honor of being the only stationary vortex spell in the game. This ensures that it'll never randomly roll over your own troops, but it also cannot potentially flow into neighboring enemy formations to cause greater damage, so it's a bit of a trade off there. If nothing else, you can use it to create a zone of denial in chokepoints.

• Glade Captain (DLC) -

Units

Melee Infantry

• Eternal Guard - Eternal Guard are the closest thing to a defensive front line unit you have. Available shielded or unshielded (you should always take shielded Eternal Guard, precious other units in your army resist ranged attacks), these stalwart warriors are in that perfect twilight zone of being cheap and somewhat expendable while also remaining rather competent combatants capable of holding their own against other units above their weight class. Though they'll often lose in drawn out fights against stronger, higher tier melee infantry, they can pin them down long enough for your archers or dryads to flank and make up for their sub-optimal damage output. Eternal Guard, being exclusively armed with spears, are excellent anti-cavalry/monster screens and, when braced, can easily halt enemy charges in their tracks. No matter your focus, be it cavalry, missile units or treemen, you'll want your line held by a few of these guys.
  • Winterheart Guards (RoR) - Eternal Guard, only with charge defense against everything, an encouragement aura for nearby allied units and unbreakable. These guys will hold the line until the bitter end, something they'll ensure takes a long time due to their increased defensive stats. You'll want these guys somewhat centrally located in your front line to ensure their leadership buff affects as many Eternal Guard as possible.

• Wardancers - These lovely ladies serve as dedicated infantry blenders, a job they do really, really well. They are exceptionally quick for infantry themselves, able to outrun a majority of the targets you'd throw them at (only a select few infantry units can even keep pace with them, namely Skinks). They do their best work against unarmored foes, so you should generally avoid sending them in against particularly hardy front line units. This is because, like a significant portion of your army, Wardancers are frail. Really frail. They take damage just as quick as they (try to) give it, so if they enemy they're fighting just won't die then they'll begin to. They do have an active skill that trades some of their melee attack for a defensive buff, which can help them come out on top in a DPS race, though they'll still be left far worse for wear without support. Pairing Wardancers with Eternal Guard is recommended to alleviate this; while the Eternal Guard pins down and tanks a particularly dangerous enemy, the Wardancers step in and carve them to pieces.

• Spear Wardancers - Wardancers who specialize against large foes instead of infantry formations. Where regular Wardancers simply appreciate having Eternal Guard tank the hits, Spear Wardancers actually synergize with them extremely well due to their shared offensive niche. Just like the regular Wardancers, have the Eternal Guard intercept cavalry or monsters before sending these gals in. Spear Wardancers have an activated ability that grants them additional missile resistance, but it comes at the cost of their melee defense.
  • Loec's Tricksters (RoR) - If you thought regular Wardancers were glass cannons, you haven't seen these ones at work. This regiment of renown exchanges the normal Spear Wardancer activated ability in exchange for one that pumps up their melee attack in exchange for their defense (literally the opposite effect of the regular Wardancers ability) which, when combined with the addition of Frenzy, makes them do obscene damage to large units. Unfortunately, this also means that a stiff breeze will slaughter them to the last. Hold these ladies in reserve for a critical fight, such as engaging the enemy lord or a key monster in their army and support them with magic to make sure they survive the ensuing melee.

• Wildwood Rangers - The Wildwood Rangers have an... interesting role. They're your only dedicated source of melee armor piercing damage, which they deal a lot of, but they also specialize against large targets. While these two perks often work fantastically against monsters and cavalry, it tends to pay off less on the armored masses you may often find yourself against. That said, they are still your only real choice for killing armored infantry in melee. They're certainly not bad at the job, mind you, they're just not great at it either.
  • Wardens of Cythral (RoR) - Take the Wildwood Rangers, give them silver shields, armor sundering and a beefy charge defense against large targets and send them on their way. These guys are better suited to prolonged fights against large foes than Spear Wardancers, particularly because they have actual stats in their defenses. With support, these guys can chunk most armored targets relatively well in good time.

• Dryads - The first of your treekin soldiers, Dryads are better suited to tanking and dealing physical damage than your Eternal Guard, but are notably weaker against magical and fire based attacks. Dryads also have virtually no charge defense and cannot deal with enemy cavalry remotely as well as the Eternal Guard either. Having said that, Dryads do have two notable selling points over Eternal Guard: They are immune to psychology (so Fear and Terror) and they have vanguard deployment. Cleverly hidden trees can easily fall upon a squishier back line to disrupt/shut down artillery and archers while formations of Eternal Guard distract the heavy hitters long enough for your angry trees to come into play.
  • Malevolent Dryads (DLC FLC) - Drycha Campaign Exclusive. These are basically ever so slightly buffed Dryads with the added Frenzy ability, making them substantially more threatening right out of the gate.
  • Wraiths of the Frozen Heart (DLC, RoR) - These dryads have been gifted with attacks that freeze and slow their targets, helping to ensnare and lock down enemies for you to

• Bladesingers (DLC) - At first glance, you'd assume these fiery redheads are just reskinned Wardancers. You wouldn't necessarily be wrong to assume that, but you will pay dearly if you underestimate them for that mistake. These ladies are your elite melee infantry and butcher anything not horse-sized or larger due in no small part to a combination of magical attacks and high armor-piercing damage. Bladesingers also have the ability to "turn off" their armor piercing damage modifier to give themselves a melee attack buff, letting them effectively cut down virtually any flavor of infantry you could throw them at. You can switch between the two modes at will, unlike the Wardancers, so they are exceptionally flexible for how killy they are. The main drawback is exactly what you'd expect from a bunch of half-naked ladies; their defensive stats are hot tish. Though they have access to Dodge and a decent melee defense, they will still die in droves if targeted by archers or thrown against an enemy a touch outside their weight class. None-the-less, having at least one squad of these fine warrior women is strongly recommended against literally any army that fields frontline infantry.

Missile Infantry

• Glade Guard - Your first, cheapest and ever reliable missile infantry, Glade Guard are the troops you'll have in your back-line in order to rain hell upon the enemies your melee infantry is currently harassing. Frankly speaking, there's little that can honestly be said about the bog-standard Glade Guard; they'll do decent work against unarmored enemies and they're pretty damn cost efficient, but you might find yourself looking at one of the two variants if you want to get some real work done.
  • Glade Guard (Hagbane Tips) - Glade Guard with poisonous arrows. Though they deal slightly less direct damage with their missiles, they more than make up for it if they're supporting your melee infantry by applying poison debuffs all over their target's back. Using these particular Glade Guard for that purpose is a touch tricky however, as you need to be incredibly mindful of your positioning so as to not fire into your own unit's backsides while they're mashed against the enemy.
  • Glade Guard (Starfire Shafts) - Glade Guard with armor-piercing arrows. These guys are a fantastic ranged answer to the likes of Dwarves, Chaos Warriors and Lizardmen and should almost always be taken over regular Glade Guard (or at the least, alongside them) to ensure that you can still deal damage to them.

• Deepwood Scouts - Sneaky elves who can utilize the combination of their stealth and vanguard deployment to sneak up and ambush the vulnerable backsides of enemy formations. Unlike Glade Guard, the Deepwood Scouts can fire while moving and can do so from any angle, letting them easily kite slower, unarmored units.
  • Deepwood Scouts (Swiftshiver Shards) - Deepwood Scouts that fire two shots at a time. Even with the reduced range over regular Deepwood Scouts, the doubled DPS more than makes up for that minor inconvenience.

• Waywatchers - Your premium archer unit, and one of the highest damaging archer units in the game. Considering that this is factoring in units like the Sisters of Averlorn, that's saying something. All the strengths of the Deepwood Scouts are combined the Starfire Glade-Guard's utility with yet more impressive range and heightened movement speed that allows them to function both as a back-line unit or as vanguard ambusher.
  • Hawk-eyes of Drakira (RoR) - Waywatchers that also come packing with a smokebomb to slow and discourage anyone from getting too close. They also have a slightly faster reload speed and slightly better accuracy than their generic kin, which alone is worth the slight upsell.

Melee Cavalry

• Glade Riders (Spears) (FLC) - Cheap, fast cavalry. At 94 speed they're faster than your Wild Riders but that and the price tag are basically the only good things you can say about them. They lack the armor piercing damage and Frenzy of the Wild Riders and, despite what the (Spears) tag might have you believe, they are not actually anti large, at least not in multiplayer though they can get an anti-large technology in campaign. As a fast, cheap melee harasser they will likely be best used in a similar fashion to hounds or feral cold ones, chasing down ranged infantry and artillery units and chasing units off the field

• Wild Riders The premier Wood Elf light cavalry and Mel Gibson's personal guard, these units can blend infantry they get a rear charge into but their squishiness will mean you don't want to leave them in combat for long. With decent melee attack, a nice charge bonus and armor piercing damage, these units can effectively kill things, but with low melee defense and armor they can certainly be killed back. Some physical resist makes them a bit tougher than their otherwise low defensive stats would lead you to believe, but don't send them into combat with units that deal magical damage or they'll melt fairly fast. All varieties of Wild Riders have Frenzy, meaning they'll be extra choppy until their leadership gets below 50% so if you want them at their most effective don't let them take too much damage.
  • Wild Riders (Shields) A straight upgrade to Wild Riders, other than the price. Silver shields make them much more resistant to ranged fire and slightly higher melee defense lets them stick in combat for longer. They're still not heavy cavalry though, and are much more comfortable attacking from the side or rear than the front.
  • Wild Hunters of Kurnous (RoR) With naturally higher melee attack than your standard Wild Riders and magic damage on top of that, these dendrophiles are even choppier than your standard variety stag-riding knife-ear. Don't bring them against Dwarfs though, the magic resistant little bastards will actually be harder to kill than if you'd brought standard Wild Riders.

• Great Stag Knights What's better than riding a stag into battle? Riding a really big stag into battle, of course! These monstrous cavalry are even faster than normal Wild Riders, with slightly higher melee attack and melee defense than even the shield variant. More importantly the Great Stage Knights have some actual armor meaning they're capable of taking a hit, though they certainly don't want to stay in melee combat for too long. Send them into infantry formations then giggle as the infantry goes flying. A few cycle charges from these will even break Chaos Chosen.
  • Lost Sylvan Knights (RoR) What's better than riding a really big stag into battle? Riding a really big ghost stag into battle, of course! As an ethereal unit, all the standard ethereal rules apply. They've got a ton of physical resist and no armor. Throw them into melee with bog standard swordsmen and you can leave them there safely but as soon as some wizard wazzock starts tossing magic damage around your Sylvan Knights will start dying, really fast. Don't let them fight anything that deals magic damage unless you want them to become lost again, permanently this time. They're undead, which means they crumble instead of routing which is generally a good thing as they can still hold a line and attack while crumbling.

Missile Cavalry

• Glade Riders
  • Glade Riders (Hagbane Tips)

• Hawk Riders

• Sisters of the Thorn

Monsters

• Tree Kin
  • Firebark Elders (RoR)

• Great Eagle

• Treeman

• Forest Dragon

• Zoats
  • Enigmas of Ghyran (RoR)