Growing Pains
Much like any general who has had a new book released, there
are a certain amount of growing pains that have to be experienced in order to
find that perfect “fit”. As the Wood
Elves have had a substantial departure from their previous rule set and play style,
all my previous posts concerning “Tactica” and “Preferred Enemies” have been
slightly invalidated.
I personally am struggling with balancing form and function
in order to make the army be a perfect balance between “meta” and “theme”. I had spent years honing my previous 2,800
point list to take full advantage of my personal play style, the local meta and
the theme I had developed in order to further the “story line” of my army. Even with some of the changes to magic items
and magic lores, my old list still would work in the current rule set, albeit
not as well (maybe).
One additional caveat or challenge that I put myself through
which most players don’t think about or even care about really is that in
addition to making forum, function and theme work; I need to make sure the army
fits in my Table War display case. A
challenge that I did not think would be an issue at first!
The old list I used in with the previous book relied on
balanced shooting and close combat, synergy of 3 magical items to create a
deadly assassination tool and a very durable bunker, and mobility. I put a lot of emphasis on having the
assassination type general that alongside his unit of Waywatchers would
annihilate heavily armored cavalry and smaller heavily armored units. Meanwhile,
the meaty Treekin alongside the Wild Riders and my 3+ ward save Eagle noble
would crash into units that had been depleted by my Glade Guard and wipe them
out. I employed Eternal Guard to be a
Stubborn bunker for my Spellweaver and BSB that was protected by the 2 Glade
Guard units and my Dryads. I would use
my two Great Eagles and my Treeman to bounce around the board mopping up
smaller units or warmachines. I relied a
lot on the Bow of Loren + Arcane Bodkins combo on my General and the loss of
that combo is a hard pill to swallow.
Now that’s all fine and good John, we’re all glad you got
that whining off your chest. How are you
going to make it all work then?
Well, I want to ensure the theme stays the same of the
Waywatcher Lord Sylvos Greystorm the Huntsman is still leading the armies of
Athel Loren into battle as their Ranger-General. That means the army is going to still need to
be fast, hard hitting and mobile and have the ability to remove an enemy unit a
turn if need be in order to ensure success.
So after hours and hours of painstaking revisions and
changes and modifications; I present pretty much the exact same list only I
dropped 1 unit for another.
May I present the The Great Hunt, War Host of Athel Loren
(v.2.0)
+ Lords + (436pts)
Waywatcher Lord
Sylvos Greystorm the Huntsman, Ranger General of Athel Loren
* Glade Lord
(186pts)
(BRB)
Armour of Fortune (35pts), Asrai Longbow, Great Weapon (6pts)
Archdruidess Nysa
Greystorm the Storm Maiden, Hierophant of Athel Loren
* Spellweaver
(250pts)
(BRB)
Talisman of Endurance (30pts), Level 4 (35pts), Lore of Shadow
+ Heroes + (260pts)
Lady Nepenthia
Dreamsinger, Stormsinger of Athel Loren
* Glade Captain
(150pts)
(AB) Hail
of Doom Arrow (30pts), (BRB) Gambler's Armour (20pts), Asrai Longbow, Battle
Standard (25pts), Hand Weapon
Storm Lord Cyre
Winterwolf the Mistwalker
* Waystalker
(110pts)
(AB) Bow of
Loren (20pts)
+ Core + (843pts)
The Handmaidens of
Dornatha, the Verdant Rage
* Dryads
(110pts)
10x Dryads
(110pts)
The Spears of
Loren, Aegis of the Dreamsinger
* Eternal Guard
(258pts)
Champion
(10pts), Musician (10pts), Standard Bearer (10pts)
* 19x Eternal
Guard (228pts)
19x
Shields (19pts)
The Twilight Host
* Glade Guard
(245pts)
Musician
(10pts), Standard Bearer (10pts)
* 15x Glade
Guard (225pts)
15x
Hagbane Tips (45pts)
The Farstriders of
Lady Greystorm
* Glade Guard
(230pts)
Musician
(10pts), Standard Bearer (10pts)
* 14x Glade
Guard (210pts)
14x
Hagbane Tips (42pts)
+ Special + (736pts)
The Wolfkin, Feral
Knights of Dornatha
* Tree Kin
(270pts)
6x Tree Kin
(270pts)
The Outriders of
Twilight, Huntsmen of Kurnous
* Wild Riders
(216pts)
Champion
(10pts), Standard Bearer (10pts)
* 7x Wild
Riders (196pts)
7x
Shields (14pts)
The Storm Wardens
of Cythral, Rangers of the Huntsman
* Wildwood
Rangers (250pts)
Champion
(10pts), Musician (10pts), Standard Bearer (10pts), 20x Wildwood Rangers
(220pts)
+ Rare + (525pts)
Scryah, the Last
Shadow
* Great Eagle
(50pts)
Great Eagle
(50pts)
Gwynador, the
Scion of the Sethayla
* Great Eagle
(50pts)
Great Eagle
(50pts)
Dornatha, the
Verdant Rage
* Treeman
(225pts)
The Stalkers of
the Silent Path
* Waywatchers
(200pts)
10x
Waywatchers (200pts)
Total: 2800 pts.
This army is intended to function a bit differently than
it did before. The army will still rely
on mobility and focused assassination but the delivery method will change
slightly.
1.
The General is now a close combat general and
will be situated with the Wildwood Rangers.
2.
The Spellweaver will be located with the Glade
Guard since her spells may be cast at a relatively safe distance.
3.
The Battle Standard Bearer will be placed with
the Eternal Guard in order to provide Stubborn support.
4.
The Waystalker shall accompany the Waywatchers.
The army shall be divided up into four strike teams:
1st Talon – Assassins in the Shadows
The first talon of this “bird of prey” shall be comprised
of the Waystalker and the 10 Waywatchers in one unit with the twin Great Eagles
accompanying them. The Great Eagles will
serve as warmachine hunters/blockers so that the Waywatchers and Waystalker may
do what they do best: Assassination.
The Waystalker will fire two shots a turn at the enemy
spellcasters or the battle standard bearer in hopes of removing the enemy
leadership options. The Waywatchers will
focus on heavy cavalry, infantry or high armor targets in order to remove them
from play. When the Great Eagles are not
serving as blockers, they will hunt loan characters, warmachines or serve as
rear-charging combat resolution.
2nd Talon – Blades of Loren
The second talon is the primary combat wing. This group will have the Eternal Guard, the
Wildwood Rangers and the Wild Riders working as a single combat entity. The idea is that the Eternal Guard charge the
front and soak up damage while the Wildwood Rangers and Wild Riders strike the
flanks/rear and deliver merciless Strength 5 attacks. Ideally these units shall battle in a forest
to take advantage of the Forest Stalker rule.
3rd Talon – Wrath of the Ancients
The third talon is the support close combat wing and
defensive element to the army. This
element is comprised entirely of forest spirits; the Dryads, the Treekin and
the Treeman. With the reduction in
Strength to the Forest Spirits as a whole, it is important that these units
function as one combat element to overwhelm and destroy their targets. Due to the higher toughness of these units
and their immunity to psychology, their defensive strengths will work well to
prevent flank charges and control the field by forming a fearsome line. This talon will work in support of the 2nd
Talon and also provide defense to the 4th Talon.
4th Talon – The Darkening of the Skies
This fourth and final talon is comprised of the two Glade
Guard units and the Shadow casting Spellweaver.
This unit has all Poisoned arrows (Hagbane) and will be the most “static”
element in the army. As the Wood Elves
have lost their ability to ignore movement penalties, it serves this group best
to minimize the amount of penalties they would suffer from shooting when trying
to weaken other units. This group will
focus in debuffing the charge targets of the 2nd and 3rd
talons, crippling movement of the big units trying to support the charge
targets of the 2nd and 3rd talons, weakening the higher value
toughness models in the army for the 1st and 4th talons,
and finally wreaking havoc on the enemy lines with pit of shades or penumbral pendulum
(not to mention a well-placed mindrazor doesn’t hurt either).
The poisoned shots should be able to remove warmachines
and monsters from the battlefield opening up more opportune targets for the two
close combat wings and assassination targets for the 1st wing.
This list should (in theory) hold up against both heavy
armor armies, fast moving armies (dark elves I’m looking at you) and heavy
magic armies. I will obviously still
have some issues against horde style armies and some builds (that is just Warhammer
– not everything is a perfect counter for everything else), but I feel that
changing the unit strategies and realigning expectations on how I want a
specific talon to work should do this new book justice. The advent of having Lore of Shadow over Lore
of Life is going to be big, especially since I will be using a close combat
general now where before I had a ranged assassination general.
I am aware of the current “meta” that has been proposed
that the Wood Elves need to focus on shooting and avoidance. I am fully aware that many podcasts (except
mine because I think Wood Elves are great!) think that this book is a lower
tier book and need to avoid combat. I
will only say that I respectfully disagree and will enjoy making this list work
in the new book. I am of the mindset
that proper balance and intelligent playing will trump the overpowered netlist
or the “optimized” tournament list. While
I wanted to take certain combinations and synergies (2 units of 10 Waywatchers
comes to mind, 3 units of Wild Riders, Sisters of Thorn character bunker for 2
Level 4’s of Shadow/Death or High/Dark, filling my entire Core selection with
Glade Guard, 4 Waystalkers, etc…), I also have to take into consideration what
is fun for me to play and more importantly is fun for my opponent. I know I can take a specific combo and pretty
much kill all characters in my opponent’s army by turn 3 without ever being in
combat and break the back of their army.
Knowing how it can be accomplished and choosing not to field (or by extension
fielding it and not taking full advantage of it) it is a strong balancing point
for being a good opponent.
I will be testing this list out for the next month and a
half before I have to submit my final list for the OFCC Warhammer Team event by July 1st. I’m sure I may make
some modifications and it may well end up being that I really love how a
specific unit works and I want more if it, we’ll have to see how everything
pans out.
Until then, I’ll try to get some games going and some
Battle Chronicler reports generated. I’ll
also feel more comfortable writing up some new tactics articles after a half a
dozen or more games with the new book under my belt.
No comments:
Post a Comment