D.R.A.I.C.H.-Waging Woodland War: Flaming the Wood Elves
Posted: Fri Feb 26, 2010 3:28 pm
Many thanks to Auere for his assistance in preparing this anti-tactica and his devilish tricks for dealing with the elusive fey foe :lol:
Waging Woodland War: Flaming the Wood Elves
Based On: Wood Elf Army Book dated 2005, Druchii Army Book dated 2008 and BRB v 7.0 rules.
The following is an analysis of the tree hugging, nature loving, vile and weak inhabitants of Athel Loren from a Druchii perspective. That they share a faint and distant trace of our own noble blood is perhaps their only redeeming quality for the Asrai, or wood elves as they are more commonly known, are cowards in the extreme who hide deep within their enchanted forest. On rare occasions, they venture forth to aid the despised horse lords of Bretonnia and thus it is difficult to understand why the Druchii should bother to study such a feeble foe. Apart from making the world better by destroying and enslaving the weak, the Asrai are of interest as their fey land is home to valuable plants and treasures that are there for the taking by the bold and intrepid raider. Although cowards one and all, in defence of their homeland, the Asrai provide good sport and can even pose a threat to the uninitiated through their effective use of guerrilla tactics and the support of the fey creatures of Athel Loren. Accordingly, it is necessary to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the Asrai so that they treasures may be sought with minimum loss of precious Druchii blood.
STRENGTHS:
The Wood Elves are a guerrilla style army that employs hit and run raids before launching overwhelming numbers at a depleted foe. In support of these tactics, they have three major strengths:
1) Shooting
2) Forest Spirits, Spites & Kindreds; and
3) Mobility.
SHOOTING:
The Wood Elves are excellent archers. Their shooting does not suffer from move and shoot penalties and is comprised entirely of long bows so the effective range is well beyond 30” once movement is added. All characters gain these benefits and there are four major shooting units:
1. Glade Guard
– core archers with strength 4 at ranges below 15” so they effectively have a 35” range and 20” for S4 since they do no suffer a penalty for moving. They can be upgraded to scouts but lose their S4 at close range and are very expensive so this option is rarely taken.
2. Glade riders
– core fast cavalry with 9” move and longbows (48” range)
3. Warhawk Riders
– flying cavalry with longbows so they have an effective range of 50” that makes them very dangerous to any sorceress who thinks they are hiding behind terrain!!! Due to the cost, they are generally fielded in units of 3 and they also have a hit-and-run attack when they charge. The hit-and-run gives them the option if they win combat of fleeing and then autorallying (they must do this is they do not win). It is a very effective attack against war machine crews, dark riders/RXB flank, or lone characters.
4. Waywatchers
– a rare and expensive scout unit that comes with BS 5, two hand weapons and their shooting has killing blow inside of 15” (essentially 20” with the ability to move and shoot). They also have special deployment rules that allow them to set up within 2” of the enemy if in cover and camouflage makes them harder to hit by –1.
There are a number of magic items that Wood Elf characters can draw upon related to shooting and the most common are:
5. Bow of Loren with arcane bodkins:
the lord can shoot as many times as they have attacks (usually 4 but sometimes 5) and there are no armour saves versus any wounds – very lethal for CoKs or any character on their own.
6. Hail of Doom:
a one-shot item that grants 3d6 x S4 magical shots with no multi-shot penalty. Since the character using it is BS 6, this item can easily wipe out a unit of dark riders at long range or severely deplete elite infantry.
7. Strangleroot:
The last and perhaps most tricky shooting in the army is a strangleroot attack from a treeman or treeman ancient. The strangleroot has 6” range, can be done after marching, does not require line of sight and can be use as a stand and shoot reaction. It does an artillery dice worth of magical, S4 autohits (misfire=0) and can be very lethal to T3 troops if the dice roll is favourable.
Sethayla:
What is that Sethayla?
Wood Elves as usually not missile and combat-avoidance oriented, they tend to be just as combat-oriented as Dark Elves are. There's only one pure combat avoidance/shooting build, which is generally nicknamed the "Sethayla" variant (just as we Dark Elf players have our own variants, i.e. Temple of Khaine). Sethayla is very nasty, especially against other elves. It can all be countered, but frustrating to fight if you don't realize what you're up against during deployment.
Sethayla Army list.
The Sethayla variant features nothing but Alter characters (one will have the Hail of Doom Arrow, the other Bow of Loren/Arcane Bodkins to shoot up heavy cavalry) and the rest of the army will consist of nothing but Glade Guard for Core, Warhawk Riders for Special and 10-strong Waywatcher units for Rare.
Sethayla tactics.
The Glade Riders and Warhawk Riders can march or fly their respective 18-inch and 20-inch movements with 360 degree mobility and still hit at short range on a 3+. The 30 inch range on longbows guarantees they can sit outside of repeater crossbow and magic missile range for most of the game. That's the pure combat-avoidance build, and is not particularly fun to play against with any army, let alone Dark Elves with their abundance of T3, poorly-armored models.
Countering Sethayla.
A lord on dragon is probably the best counter to it, since all those S3 shots still suffer to hurt a Toughness 6 model with 3+ armor that's just as fast as the Wood Elf units are.
If you're not running a Dreadlord on dragon though, the best bet is protect your ranged units as long as possible and try to narrow off sections of the board that the Sethayla units can flee to. Protecting bolt throwers should be a high priority, since they have the range, strength and accuracy to carve VP off of Sethayla units. Dark elf infantry regiments will be useless, but they're better off trying to "herd" the Sethayla units into areas of the table where they're easier to deal with.
If you play with buildings, put as as many shooting and Sorc units in them for added protection. Hydras should be ready to charge down Waywatcher units, breath on them and charge into combat.
Once you get close, he has little to pit against you. Anything you can throw at him before he has time to shoot you to pieces is going to help you.
Tuning a list against Sethayla.
QUICK CHARGE. No ranked infantry. A lord on dragon - Hydras - Harpies - Characters on steeds - a pair of chariots (Chariots often work as a valuable area denier).
SHOOTING. DE shooting is better than WE once you're in range, and shielded RXB will survive a lot of WE attention. RBT work great in order to eliminate any glade guard masses. Multiple (3-4) units of Dark Riders with RXB's are perfect for keeping small units and Wild Riders honest, but hide them from shooting.
MAGIC. A strong magic phase would be ideal, WE suffer more than any other army from magic. Consider Dark Magic, chillwind, Doombolt, Bladewind are all fine spells. Take a Focus Familiar
FOREST SPIRITS, SPITES & KINDREDS:
Underestimating Wood Elf CC abilities is sheer folly. Expect them to outmaneuver you and hitting your flanks with combined charges, as a wood elf chooses when and where to fight.
Wood elf lists rarely field more than 20% pointswise in shooting. The shooting units purpose aren't to decimate the opposing army, but instead to weaken their units, just enough to make the odds in their favour, to prepare the charge. WE shooting lacks the high powered artillery needed to deal with monsters or heavy armor, so as such WE need other units to deal with these threats.
Forest Spirits:
In addition to very fragile, mortal elves, there are a number of immune to psychology and fear causing troops in the Wood Elf army that give it some decent fighting troop choices. All forest spirits also receive a 5+ ward save versus non-magical attacks. Mortal characters can only join mortal units but they may become a forest spirit with an upgrade, allowing them to join forest spirit units.
The following is a breakdown of the available choices:
1. Dryads
– a core choice of skirmishing, T4 infantry with 2 x S4 attacks with decent WS and very high initiative. They make excellent screens against missile attacks due to the skirmishing, toughness and ward save. A good flank support unit in close combat or able to tackle troops without SCR such as RXBs or dark riders on their own. Their ability to charge 360/ignore terrain penalties gives them great mobility and threat range versus any light troops.
Dryads easily have enough hitting power to cleave through any Dark Elf infantry unit that doesn't have Banner of Hag Graef. Initiative 6 means they'll hit before most of our infantry in subsequent rounds of combat, and will even tear up Witch Elves and Black Guard if they won the previous combat.
The branchwraith is essentially a dryad character that can be upgraded into a 1st level wizard.
2. Treekin
– multi-wound M5/T5/S5 troops with decent armour save but flammable.
Treekin are also very resilient, and given their high Toughness, multiple wounds, Fear-causing, Ward Save and armor save, there aren't that many units that can charge them and reliably win. Even Cold One Knights and Black Guard aren't that impressive against them unless boosted by the Hydra Banner or Cauldron.
3. Wild Riders
– a unique forest spirit in that they only cause fear on the charge. They are fast cavalry with a 9” move, magic resistance and a 6+ ward if hit by magical attacks. They are most effective in combat when they have not charged as both the riders (S4 but S5 on the charge) and mounts get 2 attacks each. An excellent flanking unit as they can charge 18” and negate ranks.
4. Treeman / Treeman Ancient
– a large, stubborn and very tough monster with a good armour save that has a bound tree-singing spell to move forests (the ancient casts twice) and a strangleroot attack. The Ancient can be an excellent (and common) lord choice. Neither can join a unit or be joined.
5. Character's Mounts
– characters that become forest spirits may choose a horse, unicorn (wizard only) or giant stag. Strangely, only non-forest spirit characters can ride a dragon that has normal stats but a S2, -3 to armour save breath weapon.
Spites:
Spites are magical powers akin to daemonic gifts, gifts of Khaine, etc. Only one of each can be taken per army and only one per mortal character whereas forest spirits can use up to their magical points allotment toward multiple spites. The most common ones used include those that give +1 dispel dice, +d6 x S2 magical & poisoned attacks and the annoyance (need 6s to hit the character in a challenge). If there is a treeman ancient on the board, it will almost certainly have the annoyance spite.
Kindreds:
Kindreds allow a mortal character to gain the same abilities and join certain units such as forest spirits, scouts, wardancers, wild riders and waywatchers. The alter kindred gives move 9”, I9 and +1 attack but prevents them from being a general or joining any unit. Due to the plethora of spells/ powers/attacks that can target without LOS, the alter kindred is a disposable hero. A typical alter noble has the hail of doom, +1 attack helm on the charge and a great weapon. This gives a one-use 3d6 x S4 shooting threat and is a hazard to small units as the noble has 5 x S6 attacks, 18” charge and 360 LOS.
MOBILITY & COUNTER-MOBILITY:
As a guerrilla army, the Wood Elves rely on their mobility to avoid combat until they have overwhelming odds in their favour.
Except for the flyers, all units may run through woods as though it was open terrain. Extreme caution must be taken in looking over the battlefield to take this ability into account as a favourite tactic is to park mostly behind/in a forest, safely out of enemy charge range due to difficult terrain and then come blasting through with impunity during the wood elf turn. Wild riders are extremely good at this thanks to an 18” charge range, causing a fear check and ability to negate ranks.
In addition, if an entire unit is within a woods, the woods may be moved d3+1” via the treesinging spell any number of times during the magic phase. This allows the unit to be “surfed” across the board – very nasty when the surfer is a treeman ancient with strangleroot and terror that is hidden from view. A Treesurfing Ancient is bad enough, but a Treesurfing Ancient (casting twice treesinging) accompanied by an Alter Noble and 8-strong Wardancers can be delivered straight into a Dark Elf battle line without the Dark Elves ever having gotten line-of-sight on them.
Blocking Treesurfers
If the Treeman uses Treesurfing, then you can move any model into base contact with the Treeman to halt the forward movement of the forest. Treesinging can't move a forest over units, so you can literally block off the trees. The major downside here is that a Treeman still has his Strangleroot attack which doesn't require line-of-sight, so he can still damage an hurt any unit you use to block to the forest. The Hydra is a great choice for slowing down moving forests though; his high toughness, armor and Regeneration can easily shrug off Treesinging.
Counter-mobility:
Wood Elves may place a free 6” woods anywhere on their half of the board prior to deployment – an excellent way to block LOS of RBTs or RXBs. Furthermore, there is a strong hindrance of druchii movement by the treesinging spell. Any woods within 18” of the caster can be moved and it is difficult to counter as the casting value is very low, it is the default spell, bound versions exist in the treeman and a caster can take a cheap item that allows multiple castings per turn and adds +1” to the distance. The trees can be moved to block line of sight or movement but must stop before contacting an enemy unit or other terrain. Last, and most dangerous, the treesinging spell makes entering woods very dangerous as it can be cast offensively, anywhere on the board, inflicting d6 x S5 hits on any enemy in a woods not engaged in combat.
Waging Woodland War: Flaming the Wood Elves
Based On: Wood Elf Army Book dated 2005, Druchii Army Book dated 2008 and BRB v 7.0 rules.
The following is an analysis of the tree hugging, nature loving, vile and weak inhabitants of Athel Loren from a Druchii perspective. That they share a faint and distant trace of our own noble blood is perhaps their only redeeming quality for the Asrai, or wood elves as they are more commonly known, are cowards in the extreme who hide deep within their enchanted forest. On rare occasions, they venture forth to aid the despised horse lords of Bretonnia and thus it is difficult to understand why the Druchii should bother to study such a feeble foe. Apart from making the world better by destroying and enslaving the weak, the Asrai are of interest as their fey land is home to valuable plants and treasures that are there for the taking by the bold and intrepid raider. Although cowards one and all, in defence of their homeland, the Asrai provide good sport and can even pose a threat to the uninitiated through their effective use of guerrilla tactics and the support of the fey creatures of Athel Loren. Accordingly, it is necessary to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the Asrai so that they treasures may be sought with minimum loss of precious Druchii blood.
STRENGTHS:
The Wood Elves are a guerrilla style army that employs hit and run raids before launching overwhelming numbers at a depleted foe. In support of these tactics, they have three major strengths:
1) Shooting
2) Forest Spirits, Spites & Kindreds; and
3) Mobility.
SHOOTING:
The Wood Elves are excellent archers. Their shooting does not suffer from move and shoot penalties and is comprised entirely of long bows so the effective range is well beyond 30” once movement is added. All characters gain these benefits and there are four major shooting units:
1. Glade Guard
– core archers with strength 4 at ranges below 15” so they effectively have a 35” range and 20” for S4 since they do no suffer a penalty for moving. They can be upgraded to scouts but lose their S4 at close range and are very expensive so this option is rarely taken.
2. Glade riders
– core fast cavalry with 9” move and longbows (48” range)
3. Warhawk Riders
– flying cavalry with longbows so they have an effective range of 50” that makes them very dangerous to any sorceress who thinks they are hiding behind terrain!!! Due to the cost, they are generally fielded in units of 3 and they also have a hit-and-run attack when they charge. The hit-and-run gives them the option if they win combat of fleeing and then autorallying (they must do this is they do not win). It is a very effective attack against war machine crews, dark riders/RXB flank, or lone characters.
4. Waywatchers
– a rare and expensive scout unit that comes with BS 5, two hand weapons and their shooting has killing blow inside of 15” (essentially 20” with the ability to move and shoot). They also have special deployment rules that allow them to set up within 2” of the enemy if in cover and camouflage makes them harder to hit by –1.
There are a number of magic items that Wood Elf characters can draw upon related to shooting and the most common are:
5. Bow of Loren with arcane bodkins:
the lord can shoot as many times as they have attacks (usually 4 but sometimes 5) and there are no armour saves versus any wounds – very lethal for CoKs or any character on their own.
6. Hail of Doom:
a one-shot item that grants 3d6 x S4 magical shots with no multi-shot penalty. Since the character using it is BS 6, this item can easily wipe out a unit of dark riders at long range or severely deplete elite infantry.
7. Strangleroot:
The last and perhaps most tricky shooting in the army is a strangleroot attack from a treeman or treeman ancient. The strangleroot has 6” range, can be done after marching, does not require line of sight and can be use as a stand and shoot reaction. It does an artillery dice worth of magical, S4 autohits (misfire=0) and can be very lethal to T3 troops if the dice roll is favourable.
Sethayla:
What is that Sethayla?
Wood Elves as usually not missile and combat-avoidance oriented, they tend to be just as combat-oriented as Dark Elves are. There's only one pure combat avoidance/shooting build, which is generally nicknamed the "Sethayla" variant (just as we Dark Elf players have our own variants, i.e. Temple of Khaine). Sethayla is very nasty, especially against other elves. It can all be countered, but frustrating to fight if you don't realize what you're up against during deployment.
Sethayla Army list.
The Sethayla variant features nothing but Alter characters (one will have the Hail of Doom Arrow, the other Bow of Loren/Arcane Bodkins to shoot up heavy cavalry) and the rest of the army will consist of nothing but Glade Guard for Core, Warhawk Riders for Special and 10-strong Waywatcher units for Rare.
Sethayla tactics.
The Glade Riders and Warhawk Riders can march or fly their respective 18-inch and 20-inch movements with 360 degree mobility and still hit at short range on a 3+. The 30 inch range on longbows guarantees they can sit outside of repeater crossbow and magic missile range for most of the game. That's the pure combat-avoidance build, and is not particularly fun to play against with any army, let alone Dark Elves with their abundance of T3, poorly-armored models.
Countering Sethayla.
A lord on dragon is probably the best counter to it, since all those S3 shots still suffer to hurt a Toughness 6 model with 3+ armor that's just as fast as the Wood Elf units are.
If you're not running a Dreadlord on dragon though, the best bet is protect your ranged units as long as possible and try to narrow off sections of the board that the Sethayla units can flee to. Protecting bolt throwers should be a high priority, since they have the range, strength and accuracy to carve VP off of Sethayla units. Dark elf infantry regiments will be useless, but they're better off trying to "herd" the Sethayla units into areas of the table where they're easier to deal with.
If you play with buildings, put as as many shooting and Sorc units in them for added protection. Hydras should be ready to charge down Waywatcher units, breath on them and charge into combat.
Once you get close, he has little to pit against you. Anything you can throw at him before he has time to shoot you to pieces is going to help you.
Tuning a list against Sethayla.
QUICK CHARGE. No ranked infantry. A lord on dragon - Hydras - Harpies - Characters on steeds - a pair of chariots (Chariots often work as a valuable area denier).
SHOOTING. DE shooting is better than WE once you're in range, and shielded RXB will survive a lot of WE attention. RBT work great in order to eliminate any glade guard masses. Multiple (3-4) units of Dark Riders with RXB's are perfect for keeping small units and Wild Riders honest, but hide them from shooting.
MAGIC. A strong magic phase would be ideal, WE suffer more than any other army from magic. Consider Dark Magic, chillwind, Doombolt, Bladewind are all fine spells. Take a Focus Familiar
FOREST SPIRITS, SPITES & KINDREDS:
Underestimating Wood Elf CC abilities is sheer folly. Expect them to outmaneuver you and hitting your flanks with combined charges, as a wood elf chooses when and where to fight.
Wood elf lists rarely field more than 20% pointswise in shooting. The shooting units purpose aren't to decimate the opposing army, but instead to weaken their units, just enough to make the odds in their favour, to prepare the charge. WE shooting lacks the high powered artillery needed to deal with monsters or heavy armor, so as such WE need other units to deal with these threats.
Forest Spirits:
In addition to very fragile, mortal elves, there are a number of immune to psychology and fear causing troops in the Wood Elf army that give it some decent fighting troop choices. All forest spirits also receive a 5+ ward save versus non-magical attacks. Mortal characters can only join mortal units but they may become a forest spirit with an upgrade, allowing them to join forest spirit units.
The following is a breakdown of the available choices:
1. Dryads
– a core choice of skirmishing, T4 infantry with 2 x S4 attacks with decent WS and very high initiative. They make excellent screens against missile attacks due to the skirmishing, toughness and ward save. A good flank support unit in close combat or able to tackle troops without SCR such as RXBs or dark riders on their own. Their ability to charge 360/ignore terrain penalties gives them great mobility and threat range versus any light troops.
Dryads easily have enough hitting power to cleave through any Dark Elf infantry unit that doesn't have Banner of Hag Graef. Initiative 6 means they'll hit before most of our infantry in subsequent rounds of combat, and will even tear up Witch Elves and Black Guard if they won the previous combat.
The branchwraith is essentially a dryad character that can be upgraded into a 1st level wizard.
2. Treekin
– multi-wound M5/T5/S5 troops with decent armour save but flammable.
Treekin are also very resilient, and given their high Toughness, multiple wounds, Fear-causing, Ward Save and armor save, there aren't that many units that can charge them and reliably win. Even Cold One Knights and Black Guard aren't that impressive against them unless boosted by the Hydra Banner or Cauldron.
3. Wild Riders
– a unique forest spirit in that they only cause fear on the charge. They are fast cavalry with a 9” move, magic resistance and a 6+ ward if hit by magical attacks. They are most effective in combat when they have not charged as both the riders (S4 but S5 on the charge) and mounts get 2 attacks each. An excellent flanking unit as they can charge 18” and negate ranks.
4. Treeman / Treeman Ancient
– a large, stubborn and very tough monster with a good armour save that has a bound tree-singing spell to move forests (the ancient casts twice) and a strangleroot attack. The Ancient can be an excellent (and common) lord choice. Neither can join a unit or be joined.
5. Character's Mounts
– characters that become forest spirits may choose a horse, unicorn (wizard only) or giant stag. Strangely, only non-forest spirit characters can ride a dragon that has normal stats but a S2, -3 to armour save breath weapon.
Spites:
Spites are magical powers akin to daemonic gifts, gifts of Khaine, etc. Only one of each can be taken per army and only one per mortal character whereas forest spirits can use up to their magical points allotment toward multiple spites. The most common ones used include those that give +1 dispel dice, +d6 x S2 magical & poisoned attacks and the annoyance (need 6s to hit the character in a challenge). If there is a treeman ancient on the board, it will almost certainly have the annoyance spite.
Kindreds:
Kindreds allow a mortal character to gain the same abilities and join certain units such as forest spirits, scouts, wardancers, wild riders and waywatchers. The alter kindred gives move 9”, I9 and +1 attack but prevents them from being a general or joining any unit. Due to the plethora of spells/ powers/attacks that can target without LOS, the alter kindred is a disposable hero. A typical alter noble has the hail of doom, +1 attack helm on the charge and a great weapon. This gives a one-use 3d6 x S4 shooting threat and is a hazard to small units as the noble has 5 x S6 attacks, 18” charge and 360 LOS.
MOBILITY & COUNTER-MOBILITY:
As a guerrilla army, the Wood Elves rely on their mobility to avoid combat until they have overwhelming odds in their favour.
Except for the flyers, all units may run through woods as though it was open terrain. Extreme caution must be taken in looking over the battlefield to take this ability into account as a favourite tactic is to park mostly behind/in a forest, safely out of enemy charge range due to difficult terrain and then come blasting through with impunity during the wood elf turn. Wild riders are extremely good at this thanks to an 18” charge range, causing a fear check and ability to negate ranks.
In addition, if an entire unit is within a woods, the woods may be moved d3+1” via the treesinging spell any number of times during the magic phase. This allows the unit to be “surfed” across the board – very nasty when the surfer is a treeman ancient with strangleroot and terror that is hidden from view. A Treesurfing Ancient is bad enough, but a Treesurfing Ancient (casting twice treesinging) accompanied by an Alter Noble and 8-strong Wardancers can be delivered straight into a Dark Elf battle line without the Dark Elves ever having gotten line-of-sight on them.
Blocking Treesurfers
If the Treeman uses Treesurfing, then you can move any model into base contact with the Treeman to halt the forward movement of the forest. Treesinging can't move a forest over units, so you can literally block off the trees. The major downside here is that a Treeman still has his Strangleroot attack which doesn't require line-of-sight, so he can still damage an hurt any unit you use to block to the forest. The Hydra is a great choice for slowing down moving forests though; his high toughness, armor and Regeneration can easily shrug off Treesinging.
Counter-mobility:
Wood Elves may place a free 6” woods anywhere on their half of the board prior to deployment – an excellent way to block LOS of RBTs or RXBs. Furthermore, there is a strong hindrance of druchii movement by the treesinging spell. Any woods within 18” of the caster can be moved and it is difficult to counter as the casting value is very low, it is the default spell, bound versions exist in the treeman and a caster can take a cheap item that allows multiple castings per turn and adds +1” to the distance. The trees can be moved to block line of sight or movement but must stop before contacting an enemy unit or other terrain. Last, and most dangerous, the treesinging spell makes entering woods very dangerous as it can be cast offensively, anywhere on the board, inflicting d6 x S5 hits on any enemy in a woods not engaged in combat.