Wood Elves

[Marxesperat]

I don't know if this is a topic already but I havn't seen one.

So High Elves have Martial Prowess to reflect the professionalism of their armies.

Dark Elves have Murderous Prowess to reflect our violence and desire to kill.

What would Wood Elves get whenever they're updated? Would it be fair to assume they would get some special rule to shooting or along the lines of being in woods?

I'm just wondering what people's idea's or thoughts would be as I'm honestly pretty interested and excited to see what they will do for the wood elves.

[Amboadine]

They would normal get some sort of shooting and tree hugging special rules. Can't see that changing. Maybe they will get monstrous cavalry in the form of Stag riders.
Last I heard their update was due in May, but I am not sure how accurate that actually is.

[T.D.]

tree hugging

Aren't they hippy enough?

[Dalamar]

Lets try and get it solved through logic. What each particular elven nation is good at?:

Dark Elves - Individualism and Brutality - Murderous Prowess works for individual models and makes them more likely to hurt the enemy.
High Elves - Discipline and Community - Martial Prowess works only for units, allowing more models to contribute to the fight than other armies can.
Wood Elves - Guerrilla tactics and marksmanship - thus my potential predictions:
Re-roll all 1s on shooting attacks
No penalty for moving and shooting (but not quick to fire as that has additional benefit of no penalty for stand and shoot)
etc.

[Canadianguy]

I thimk they will also have:
forestwalk
some increased strength bow units or the str 4 in short range
ward saves will work vs magic now
wardancers can do something like sisters or a return to being able to charge a unit behind another
forms for dryads
some special scouting/placement rules maybe only for waywatchers

[Dalamar]

That would be forest strider (this isn't MtG ) and yeah, that's possible even though there aren't that many cases of taking dangerous terrain tests from forests. Infantry ignores them unless it's a venom thicket. Cavalry most of the time goes through unscathed so unless Wood Elves get their chariots back (would be awesome!) there's little reason for forest strider, more of a fluff rule in this case.

[Saintofm]

I can see everyone getting the +1S to Longbow attacks army wide, and I can see forest strider (white lions get it i beleive and they don't need to use it for most gamming events).

The Storm of Magic Book mentioned something along the lines of Wood Elf Knights Riding Great Stags durring the wild hunt. I could see that as most armies have gotten new Monsterous units in some form.

While I can see a regular chariot (Wood Elves share some qualities with the Pics and other Nothern Europian barbarians durring the age of Rome) and they had war chariots. I see a light chariot like with High elves or Tomb Kings.

[Clockwork]

Marksman's Prowess is likely to be the move-and-shoot without penalty modifier that they have now - although, I thought something that would be cool is to allow Wood Elves to make a ranged attack whilst performing a Flee! reaction. I wouldn't be surprised if Glade Guard longbows get rolled out to everyone, either.

'Stag Knights' are a red herring: its basically a play on the English phrase 'stag night' (to mean when a groom and his friends go out for one last night of drinking before he gets married). I sincerely doubt that they're going to go down this route.

Based on High Elves and Dark Elf releases, my suspicions are:

1-2 new Lord choices and 1-2 new Hero choices. Ward has a pattern of taking units and making heroes out of them (Corsair hero, Phoenix Guard Lord, Swordmaster Lord, LSG hero), I see no reason why Wood Elves would be different. There are already Tree Spirit characters though, so Waywatcher, Eternal Guard and Wardancer heroes are very likely. Possibly something new like a 'beastmaster' or shapeshifter character.

Something will move to Core. My money is on Wardancers, as Warhawk Riders would make Glade Riders irrelevant, and Eternal Guard will probably stay in Special to be a mirror of the other 'Guard' units.

Eternal Guard will come in a dual kit, with the alternative either being a new Choice or possibly in Rare.

Wardancers and Waywatchers to be a plastic dual kit. Waywacher/Wardancer characters can be made out of this.

Wild Riders to be a dual kit with a new cavalry option. We haven't seen any Rare Cavalry yet, so maybe that - Shifter cavalry could be quite cool.

If I remember correctly, 3 boxes + one character model is the norm so that would be about right.

[Gidean]

Call me the pessimist but I don't think there will be a Wood Elf book coming out. I really hope that I am wrong as three players in my small gaming club play Wood Elves and love the concept.

[Amboadine]

Call me the pessimist but I don't think there will be a Wood Elf book coming out. I really hope that I am wrong as three players in my small gaming club play Wood Elves and love the concept.

On a few other forums it is still being touted for May by the rumourmongers. Don't give up hope yet.

[Saintofm]

We just got dwarves this month, next month should be a 40k army. Lets hope you guys are right about may.

[Cold73]

Lol...if GW decided not to upgrade the WE book...and simply don't support it anymore...
I think that would be a very bad idea..... I've had in my circle of friends about 6 people who would start collecting them as they become more playable.....
Hell...even i might be tempted to collect them if they upgrade the rules a bit

[Amboadine]

I would sincerely doubt they would drop them completely. They have been a core army from the very beginning. I still have the very first ravening hordes book with the lists in. They have dropped armies over the years. But not in a long while. Chaos dwarfs was the last one and that made a revival and was never a fully fledged army in the first place, only a White Dwarf presents.

So I would expect something for them. Maybe just a white dwarf update, but I am sure they will not completely disappear.

[Gidean]

I would sincerely doubt they would drop them completely. They have been a core army from the very beginning. I still have the very first ravening hordes book with the lists in. They have dropped armies over the years. But not in a long while. Chaos dwarfs was the last one and that made a revival and was never a fully fledged army in the first place, only a White Dwarf presents.

So I would expect something for them. Maybe just a white dwarf update, but I am sure they will not completely disappear.

They have indeed been an army since the beginning some 25+ years ago. However, the CURRENT management/board of directors of GW has not been around 25+ years. So...anything can happen. I hope you are all correct. I like Brets and Woodelves.

[godswearhats]

There's a huge thread on the Wood Elf forum (as you might expect). Clockwork's post above captures most of it pretty accurately. The main points of debate are whether or not Wood Elves will get access to all 8 lores (there are good reasons to both believe this will and won't happen) and what the kits will be. Most people in the Wood Elf world are pretty happy with the models available, so the wider concern is on keeping the feel of the army consistent. I'm pretty happy with both the High Elf and Dark Elf book rewrites, so I have high hopes.

Eternal Guard can already count as Core for Wood Elf armies, as long as you take a Highborn (Lord level elf warrior) so it is quite likely that they will just move them to core anyway. May still seems like the strongest release date.

GW will not likely pull the Wood Elf army, especially when you consider that the Forces of Order would then be outnumbered by the Forces of Destruction (it's currently balanced if you don't count Chaos Dwarfs).

~gwh

[Saintofm]

Even besideds that, they've had them in Black Library fiction and background fluff in High Elves, Brettonia, Dwarves, Beast Men, Vampire Counts, and now Dark Elves. I think they will stick around.

Tomb Kings were not doing so hot at one point as well, so it dosn't mean Woodies won't get their act togeather. I was just expecting it sooner then later, but then Dwarves happend.


Also just thought of something about the "Red herring."

GW has shown a love of puns here and there.

Night Goblin Mages use "Magic Mushrooms."

Most of the named dark elves in the book are punny. Morathii sounds like More Wrath.

Helebron sounds like Hell Born.

Malus and Spite is a play on words for Malice and Spite (a double play as Malus is Latin for evil).

I think a stag Night Knight could still fit. We have 2 shaksperian carecters leading the wood elves, why not?

[jgascoine011]

Most Definitely
They wont get dropped and will be released in April/May (prob end of May because of the IG release)
Access to all 8 lores
ASF
Re-roll 1's to hit with bows


Likely
No penalties to move or shoot
No more limits on scouting archers (but might be moved to special)
All bows will be S4 at short range (really, it makes no sense that the most basic troops have this rule but yet the more elite units dont...maybe the credit crisis has hit the wood elves too and budget cuts have forced them to take away the good bows from the more elite units)
Plastic treekin which will make treekin and something else i.e a duel kit


Apparently
New forest dragon (the current one looks crap so i can see this happening)
Monstrous cav stag riders (this however does not fit in with the wood elf lore at all where the stags are incredibly rare)
New duel kit eagle riders (i actually think this is more likely that stag riders and would make a duel kit...think along the lines of lizardmen terradons/rippers - 1 skirmish and 1 combat - but hopefully not with as crappy rules)

Maybe
Duel kit glade/wild riders (I cant see to get hold of glade riders from my local GW store so maybe they are redoing them,, i hope not though as i love the current models and GW has a habbit of screwing up beautiful models...I am looking at you slaanesh seekers)

[Amboadine]

Newest rumour. Next White Dwarf has the tag line. "If you go down to the woods today....you are in for a big surprise. "

Not the most subtle clue, but hey, when has GW been good at the hype?

So definitely all pointing to our woodie cousins coming to a shop near you in May.

[Gidean]

Newest rumour. Next White Dwarf has the tag line. "If you do down to the woods today....you are in for a big surprise. "

Not the most subtle clue, but hey, when has GW been good at the hype?

So definitely all pointing to our woodie cousins coming to a shop near you in May.

That is super news!

[Dalamar]

I'd rather see bretts

[T.D.]

ME WANT NEW ELF-Y TOYS

(but my wallet doesn't )

[Gidean]

Well looks like our 'neutral' cousins on Asarai.org are getting excited about their impending release. More excited than I noted the Bugman's people were when Dwarves were about to hit.

[Dalamar]

Dwarfs are by nature grumbly and not very excitable... Even the sole dwarf player in my club wasn't very excited.

[T.D.]

Explains their low population-replacement rate.

[Gidean]

Dwarfs are by nature grumbly and not very excitable... Even the sole dwarf player in my club wasn't very excited.

Yep this fits the Dwarf Players I know.

Wood Elves were one of my first armies but I gave up on them some long time ago. No matter how uber they make the new one I just won't be collecting. I truly have no more room to store models at my house. I might buy and paint a treeman model if the plastic kit is really cool.